Are you smarter than a grade 8 student from 1895? I think not. (page 2)

hillbilly

All the stuff on that Kansas test is stuff you should be able to figure out today. Farm stuff? A "rod" is a survey unit still in use today...16 feet.

Figuring out the capacity of a farm wagon? The same arithmetic you use to figure out the volume of any container.

The reality is we dont teach kids anything these days. Math, science, English composition and grammer are non-existant in todays schools. I have raised several kids...what they learn in school passes for squat. I give the most basic dinner table quizes and end up teaching the basics at home. We have an 8th grader and the bulk of what little shool work he has to do is "worksheets". It doesnt look much better for the first grader we have either.

Folks my age just missed the "new math" fad of the 60's. We did have to learn the parts of speech, State history, Civics and how to make change out- of- hand without an electronic cash register.

My dad (class of 55) knew enough to work in a job that would require an "engineer" today. By the time he retired he found he was teaching "engineers" the basics of trig and geometry THEY didnt know how to do. The man has penmanship you could die for....they dont teach that today either.

The High shool I graduated from had just dropped Latin as a required subject the year before I started. That was a little River town in Tennessee. If you didnt get at least a year of Algebra you didnt graduate. And I knew some kids who toughed it out and stayed in after failing a couple of years.

~Hill

America needs to wake up. We spend plenty of money on education... the issue in my mind, is the value of course content.

~Hill

hillbilly

Not to be a bad sport ...I notice that all the reponses so far tend to justify a lack of basic knowlege.

"what you need to survive in Kansas" or "the facts have changed" .... Have any of you folks spoken with a recent high shool graduate?

Find one today and ask him to balance a checkbook, or tell you what the best deal in on financing a computer or car . Ask him what a promisary note is. See if they can figure out the unit price of a product. You may as well be talking to a stump... not stupid kids..they just are not taught anything in shool anymore. Nor, many of them by their folks.

I taught adults for the last 10 years. Electrical trade program for a major electric utilty. I was appaled at the ignorance of the people the company was hiring. Electrical work requires basic math skills,,,reading and writing skills... decision making...all the stuff they used to teach in schools. From what I saw in the years I worked there I cant tell you how many people I had that couldnt do long division WITH a calculator. And we were paying these clods over $25 an hour the whole time I was there.

I used to READ tests to the illiterate guys ...some with a year or two of college.

~Hill

CaptainSchmideo

Sorry guys! This is an Urban Legend:

http://www.snopes.com/language/document/1895exam.asp

If you really want to see some hard questions, read the exam for TEACHERS that was given in 1876, and the review afterwards of one of the test writers of the answers of the teaching candidates. It's at the botton of the article.

hillbilly

Urban legend or not... I say take a look at some school books published from 1880 to the 1950's and tell me what you would expect those kids to know. Then take a look at the junk your kids haul home. NO comparison.

Forscher

Even taking into account the possibility of a hoax,

The exam reflects the educational priorities of the time not the comparative intelligence of eighth graders. The US was largely rural and the skills presented in the exam were vital for those whose lives depended on knowledge of the measures and math essential to farm owners.

Basic knowledge requirements changed over the years as the economy moved to a largely industrial and postindustrial basis. It also changed as the purpose of education changed from that of instructing children in essential life skills to indoctrinating with politically based ideology. It should be no surprise that we are raising children who are less able to compete with those of other nations in the global workforce.

Forscher

hillbilly

The earth still tilts at 23.5 deg ... wind is the effect of pressure gradients on the earths surface. If coal cost $x a ton and there is 2000 pounds in a ton... train A leaves Kansas City at ....

Schools spend too much time teaching cradle to grave nanny state ideology alright. 95% of the kids I have dealt with in the last 10 years are dolts. About the only skills I am seeing nowdays is ...well the little darlings can all hook up a X Box

~Hill

VM44

Most of the arithmetic problems are testing knowledge of conversion factors between systems of units.

and this one:

Write a Bank Check, a Promissory Note, and a Receipt

strictly speaking is not an arithmetic problem at all, but rather one of business.

Looks like the questions came from a rural school located in Kansas.

Notice that no algebra problems were listed.

--VM44

mkr32208

The reality is we don't teach kids anything these days.

Now come on we teach them how to hug and that everyone is the same and that no one should excel and that they should feel guilty for being white! That has to counted for SOMETHING!

I think every generation thinks "this new generations sucks!!!" It's always been that way. We idolize the last generation and vilify the next. The world will keep on spinning, butt heads, tards, smarties, savants, geniuses all make up the world...

That said I saw an awesome cartoon that had a high school final and it said "find your ass" and he was looking at a map with a really bewildered expression... Hilarious!

stillajwexelder

In was doing integral calculus at the age of 15. I still remember that the volume of revolution of a function round the x axis is given by pi * the integral of y^2 dx between the limits of that line

VM44

Someone posted the answers on a web page!

http://www.barefootsworld.net/1895examcomp.html

Are you smarter than a grade 8 student from 1895? I think not.

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