Henry Clay? Or Abraham Lincoln?

[Bill Richter]

Well, I can guarantee that the students in my US Hist survey to 1865 course in a nothing University in Oklahoma kew who Henry Clay was (not to mention all the presidents, from GW to AL including Martin Van Buren, and other major figures) or they did not go on to the next level. I doubt if they remember all this now, but they got it then. We were evaluated as teachers by the students in those days and three things came through loud and clear--I knew the subject (believe it or not, students know when their prof is an idiot), my tests were tough but my grades fair, and I gave one heck of a good lecture with stories and jokes interspersed irregularly to keep everyone, including me, awake.

US geography is a real bummer--I agree that most student or their parents knew what states surround theirs, and I found out in high school in an International Relations course I took as a senior that no one else knew where the nations of the world were (I did because my father was from Germany and worked in Latin America before coming to the US to teach international business and he insisted). But then, when the local high school sent home our 4 year minimum requirements for graduation my father added to it such un-required things as a foreign language (I voted for German, but as we lived in Arizona der Alte said it was to be Spanish), 4 years of math to calculus, 4 years of English (although I never really learned English until I took Spanish grammar and then German grammar in college).

I understand that 42% of Americans don't know that Obama care has passed, much less anything else.

So I am with Liz--although I think the justices of the US Supreme Court are more important than Rachel Carson, but that's just a personal prejudice--yes, I have read your websites, Liz, and understand where you are coming from. Kudos.

Still it is all very sad. Remember, the idiots vote and outnumber us all. Bleah!