75% of OK High School Students Can't Name First U.S. President!!

Hi, Annie!
It's appalling, but history has suffered, geography has totally died, and many other classes have disappeared because schools must give their time to teaching not much more than the state-wide tests on which schools are judged. Their existence is pinned to those tests, even if kids can't do anything else!

I experienced one of the reasons for this myself. The teacher seemed to be all about making sure everyone in the class understood that there is no American culture, that there was nothing disinctive about the United States of America and patriotism was inherently racist.

I guess we've all had teachers that peppered their lessons with bits and pieces of their own opinions and that is probably natural. However, what I also noticed was how the class took all this in. Being in my 40s, I guess was born too late to be taught things like this when I was in school, but it was nothing new to the other students. It was pretty much what they had been taught from elementary school on. There were some exeptions, me, homeschooled kids, private school graduates... and yes, a couple of kids from public schools who had been taught the same things, but didn't drink the kool aid.

A few years ago I was in our local library and the students there were doing research about the Civil War. I asked one of the 6th graders what he knew about World War II, he looked at me funny and then I asked if he knew who won WWII. He had no clue. I don't know what they are teaching these children about the history of our country? They have a class called "Social Studies" and I have no idea what they teach in this class, as they no longer teach American History in the grade schools. More and more of our tax dollars are thrown at the school system and it looks like the schools have been dropping the ball!

I really can't fathom how anyone can get to highschool without knowing these things. You'll always have stupid kids, or ones that just aren't interested in American History, but when this happens on such a massive level, someone really needs to monitor these classrooms and figure out what's going wrong.

Just to be clear, I mean the STATE needs to look into it, the federal department of education is useless and only makes things worse when they get involved.

Hey annie! Now that is really pathetic! I wonder if they
know who's picture is on the one dollar bill and why? How
sad is that? I mean I can name the presidents in the exact
order that they were seated from the very beginning and I
am ashamed of that, but at least I do know the Presidents and
the definitely the very first one! It has gotten to be so
pathetic how the teachings of children are now! I wasn't very
good in history because I wasn't able to remember dates,
but I sure as hell had to remember enough of them to get from
grade to grade or I never would have gotten out of high school
and surely never would have made it into college!

That is so sad that these kids do not know this information. I will have to ask my daughter also. she is 17 and will graduate this year. I want to see if she knows the answer to that question also.

This situation is sad. I believe it is partly due to the downfall of the value system. What I mean is children these days place more value in the name of the new PS3 games than they do in the names of any of our past presidents. History keeps teaching lessons, but it doesn't seem that we learn from them. That is why it is important for children to know a bit of history to see what has worked in the past and what hasn't. Your idea on quizzing your grandkids is good? Maybe it can be done when everyone is together like at dinner or something like that. It probably would do some of the adults some good, as well.

forget history means betray,when you have a drink and you should know where the water come from.

This thing isn't unique to America. Philippines, being a rich country, has a very rich history which is, by now, unimportant to the students.

I believe the fault is in the educational system and the teachers. There are instructors who skip the most important information for the sake of self-serving. For example, he doesn't like revolutions so he won't discuss those. The thing is, teachers are existing to guide the students on learning. The problem is, the students rely solely on these teachers that the teachers tend to spoonfeed the information to the kids. The kids will stop questioning, saying that they will soon learn everything in school. Actually, they won't.

I have experienced a professor revising a part of history. Hideous isn't it? He altered a few names and few instances in order to fit his liking. I then discovered in the encyclopedia that what happened was the opposite.

I don't think we cannot blame the kids, but they are young and are not too conscious about their right to information. What we need is the reorientation of the teachers. The knowledge of the kids today lie on the guidance provided by the teachers. This matter is very crucial.

Well with the "NCLB" act the school and that standardized testing actually does leave a lot of children "behind". I'm pretty involved in the schooling of my children and I use to work at the county school board so during this time I have heard over and over that the school doesn't really have time to teach children stuff that isn't on the test. When I first heard that "NCLB" was being passed I thought the idea of it was great but, it wasn't. Kids don't "do" the same things we did when we were in school. If it isn't on the test it really isn't taught, sad huh?