"Clark" wrote in message
...
On Jul 16, 8:40 am, "Ed Huntress" wrote:

When was the last time you read a high school American History textbook,
Clark? That assumes you *ever* read one, of course.

Ed Huntress

It looks like I may be wrong about this.
You got me.

That's not my object. We all make mistakes. However, these narratives that
start off with attidudes and ideology and end up becoming an entrenched myth
are bad news.

My kids are 21 and 24.

Mine is 23.

I did not read their history books.

It's a habit from my misspent youth. d8-)

I did not read MY history books.
I tested the highest in my jr high in social studies, top 1% in
standardized tests, at the beginning of the 9th grade to see what we
had learned in the 8th grade American history.
I often had the highest test scores in all the classes of my high
school in the 10th grade, ~ 240 10th graders.
In both the 8th and 10th grade I did not do ANY homework in ANY class.
I have the ability to do well on multiple choice tests with a minimum
of knowledge.

That's quite a remarkable ability.

But I can't always win.

My son and my father got engineering degrees from the U of Wash,
without doing homework.
I really tried hard to do that too, but I was not smart enough.
With horrible accumulated deficiencies, I was forced to do homework
every day in my last year to get an engineering degree from the U of
Wash.

And my father and my son have never wasted time posting anything on
the internet, and look at me... visiting rec.crafts.metalworking, as
if my time was worth nothing.

And look at all the rest of us, too. Sheesh.

As for today's education, I've seen how good it is when it's done well. My
wife is a teacher and my son is a think-tank researcher, going for a
Master's degree in math at Georgetown next month. I follow it all very
closely, and was very active with the school board and so on.

My town's schools are well above average but I'm impressed. It's so much
better when when we were in school. And I graduated from what was then one
of the top-ranked public high schools in the country (Princeton High School,
full of Princeton University sons and daughters).

The problem is not how or what they teach today. The problem is that we've
so debased and demeaned public education that only the best schools, with
involved parents, can really take advantage of the resources and the
teaching skills that represent the best of American education. The rest are
suffering from a profession that's generally held in lower esteem than ever,
and an over-politicized scheme of management and decision-making.

The books are much better, except where state school boards have dictated
that stupidity and ignorance will be the ruling principles. Thus, my
references to Texas and Kansas.

--
Ed Huntress