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Health & Fitness

Common Knowledge? Not Anymore!

In which the author asks what, if anything, is taught these days…

     Starting in 1961 I attended Easter services annually and often heard the inevitable analogy between the Resurrection and flowers springing back to life. In the mid 90’s I wondered aloud to my younger co-workers what priests in the southern hemisphere say to their parishioners at Easter when the flowers are receding into the Earth to sleep away the cold weather.  My question met with blank stares because no one born after 1962, it seemed, knew the southern hemisphere even had opposite seasons, including people who were born in that region.

     This seems like an important fact about the world we live in but may not have been in the curriculum.

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     A few years ago I found that my very depressed home care patient responded somewhat to game shows by answering questions, making fun of contestants and guessing who would win. The deep fried, corn pone humor of Are You Smarter than a Fifth Grader? caught his attention and while watching it one day we were both astounded by a contestant I will call “Will.”  The question had to do with a president who was active in the military in both World Wars.  This was not a real fifth grade question and Will was only in his 20s so I had little hope he would come up with Dwight D. Eisenhower.  I decided I would be happy with any president following Herbert Hoover.  No one could have predicted that Will would reply “Benjamin Franklin.”  The host, Jeff Foxworthy, saw comedic gold in this guy and asked him if he had any idea when the First World War occurred. “Hoo-WEE! A long time ago,” was Will’s reply.

     “You have just become my all time favorite contestant!” said Jeff as Will beamed with pride. We got a lot of laughs from that and my patient spoke in entire paragraphs describing it, so it had a real but unexpected benefit.

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     Celebrity Jeopardy is often a chance for the rest of us to feel a little superior as questions seem to be “dumbed down” for the famous people. Once Anderson Cooper (b 1976), NBC’s Kelly O’Donnell (b 1965), and New York Times smart guy Thomas Friedman (screwing up my theory a little bit by being born in 1953) had to “question” the “answer”: “His invention brought the South prosperity…” The four people watching the show at my house were born between 1950 and 1954 and we all immediately shouted “Eli Whitney! Cotton Gin!”  (Sadly, this is the kind of fun you can look forward to when you get to be our age.)  None of our esteemed contestants got this right and we were appalled, we all remembered learning it in the 5th grade. 

     This is not some trivia question such as who sang “She’s Not There”? * This was an important part of the South’s economy, along with slave labor; placing it in a stronger position to start the Civil War. That war was the worst thing to happen to our country until the administration of your least favorite president. In today’s terms, it was a game changer.  And it seems to no longer be relevant. The college grads I know who are more than 10 years younger cannot place that war into any particular century, or know if it happened before or after the Revolutionary War.

       Many young people believe it was the Nazis who dropped the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  Another person I know who recently graduated with a degree in “communications” did not know that movie times are listed in newspapers. Please do not get me started on Shari Shepherd, who may believe the Earth (b year 1, A.D.) is flat. She makes more money than most of us, without a doubt.

     This is not to say I am better educated or smarter than anyone, I never took trig and until my 30’s I thought lakes were affected by tides. My concern is that the Gen Xers and Millennials do not appear to know basic facts about our world, and our country’s history.

     Most Europeans and Asian immigrants I have met seem to be much better educated than the average American and many speak more than two languages.  I worked with a Russian nurse in a Nassau County hospital and she was often made fun of due to her thick accent.  Upon viewing a posting on the bulletin board about an upcoming “coarse” in infection control she asked, “Is that not a reference to texture?”  Her language usage was impeccable, her definition of the word spot-on and she caught the spelling error but people still derided her accent.

     There is an undercurrent of anti-intellectualism in this country which suggests that being educated is elitist. I wish this reverse-elitist attitude would just go away. I hope we can get to a place where striving for knowledge is a worthy goal and all honest work is valued whether it is manual labor, banking or health care. I don’t know if the new Common Core will address the gaping holes in curriculum but a major change must occur if our kids are going to compete in the global and local economy.

*The Zombies, 1964

    





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