How Stupid Are Americans?

[mimartin]

Newsweek had an interesting story on Americans' knowledge (yes I originally saw the story on Real Time with Bill Maher. Find it really funny that one of the number one hit list on many states budget right now is education when surveys like this just proves that should be the very last thing we cut).

 

Story

 

The Quiz I missed question #3 (so I'm pretty stupid, not surprising considering I’m an American. Guess I’m at home. )

For some reason I thought Thomas Jefferson was involved.

 

 

The following part pretty much killed my faith in the intelligence of the American people.

A 2010 World Public Opinion survey found that Americans want to tackle deficits by cutting foreign aid from what they believe is the current level (27 percent of the budget) to a more prudent 13 percent. The real number is under 1 percent. A Jan. 25 CNN poll, meanwhile, discovered that even though 71 percent of voters want smaller government, vast majorities oppose cuts to Medicare (81 percent), Social Security (78 percent), and Medicaid (70 percent). Instead, they prefer to slash waste—a category that, in their fantasy world, seems to include 50 percent of spending, according to a 2009 Gallup poll.

 

:patriot:God Bless this country because if there isn't a God we are.....

[JediAthos]

I'm not really surprised by the numbers presented in the article which I guess is really kinda sad. At the same time I don't think we're going to implode any time soon either. One of the things prominent in our history is that Americans have always managed to adapt when we've had to. Many of the world's most useful inventions have come from Americans as well so I haven't lost all hope.

 

I'm not delusional, I know our education system needs serious help, but I suppose I'm also optimistic that we can get it fixed. Perhaps a little overly optimistic...

[Darth InSidious]

Stupid? No. Misled by a combination of abysmal journalism (paradoxically, for a country where journalism is a respectable career), a binary political system in which party affiliation infects all aspects of life, and an education system that manages to combine the unreformable cluster**** of union-dominated public-sector schooling with the free-wheeling, free-marketeering, I-want-my-money's-worth nightmare of a privatised higher education sector.

 

Then on top of this you have an oligarchic plutocracy pushing your news media into the shape it is, and altering the information you get in order to keep you in your current state: woefully under-informed, and perpetually paying into the best interests of big business, not your own.

 

The rest of your culture takes place in between cocktail lounges in Manhattan, amongst those who feign disdain for the system they've worked to get to their comfortable if whingy lives.

 

But don't worry - the UK is right behind you, and catching up fast.

 

Addendum: For the record, I got 8/20 questions correct. Or more properly, 7/20, since as WCH points out below, they got the date wrong (knowing the year counts for a foreigner, right? )

[Working Class Hero]

They got one of their own questions wrong. The declaration of independence was adopted July 2, not July 4.

[mimartin]

They got one of their own questions wrong. The declaration of independence was adopted July 2, not July 4.

 

My understanding was July 2nd was the date independence was approved, but it wasn’t until July 4th that the actual final document was approved.

 

Even the date on the Declaration of Independence shows July 4, 1776.

 

 

Still don't blame Newsweek if you believe the date is wrong. The quiz is from the Federal Government. It the same questions given to immigrants to obtain citizenship.

[Working Class Hero]

Yeah, they acually voted on it before it was written out. The document was voted on and approved July 2, but they signed a copy 2 days later. The act itself was declared July 2, but the document wasn't actually filed until August 2 in Philly.

 

I think it's a bit of a trick question.

 

 

The quiz is from the Federal Government.

That explains it perfectly.

[mimartin]

Yeah, they acually voted on it before it was written out. [/qUOTE]Not what I wrote. The final draft was not done on the 2nd. They approve independence and what would be in the document, but the finished product still had to be put onto paper. Too bad they did not have the same edit and printing equipment we have today or perhaps they could have had the finished product as soon as it was approved.

 

Personally I don’t consider a letter to be complete until it is signed.

[Sabretooth]

I got 11 right (taking some answers liberally, for eg. my answer to "What was the US' greatest concern in the Cold War" was "To prevent the spread of influence of the USSR", when their answer said "Communism")

 

Inshallah I will get my green card soon and I will work in the wonder of the West, the Amreeka

[Working Class Hero]

Not what I wrote. The final draft was not done on the 2nd. They approve independence and what would be in the document, but the finished product still had to be put onto paper. Too bad they did not have the same edit and printing equipment we have today or perhaps they could have had the finished product as soon as it was approved.

 

Personally I don’t consider a letter to be complete until it is signed.

I wasn't intending that to sound sarcastic. It was supposed to convey that I didn't agree with their decision to ratify something before the final draft was written out. If the question was when was the declaration first signed, you could say July 4. But it was adopted July 2, which is what Newsweek asked. The letter was just the physical copy of what they had already agreed upon, not the act itself.

[Totenkopf]

Well, it is kind of sad that when you ask people on the street to identify a pic of the vice-president (Biden) they draw a blank (and not necessarily just the younger kids), but they know who people like Beiber and the "sitch" are. Wonder what the results would be if you seperated public school kids from parochial/private ones.... Still, if you dumb down the masses sufficiently and throw them enough scraps to keep them distracted, they're probably easier to control.

[urluckyday]

Perfect. These kinds of quizzes give people the idea that pushing more money into education is the solution. I don't think this shows the sad state of journalism (however broken it may be), it shows the sad state of the education system.

 

How about instead of pushing more and more money into education (because statistics have proved that more money =/= better education), we get rid of that thing we call TENURE and protecting teachers who have a terrible track record of teaching. That's why colleges are so effective (or at least the one I go to). At the end of every semester, we fill out evaluations on the teacher, and the feedback is not only reviewed by the teacher but also the administration. Even if it doesn't lead to the "firing" of a teacher immediately, those reviews at least HELP the teacher to improve if they see a pattern of complaints. Isn't it weird that through all of these statistics about low test scores and lack of intelligence in the US, they never seem to actually TALK to the kids to see what's wrong. You can't just quantify things like that.

 

Most Americans aren't stupid because in the scheme of things...I'm sure plenty of other people in their own country don't even know their cultural backgrounds.

[Ping]

Being a high school student, my classmates and I are feeling the effects of the budget cuts, and some guys are planning to protest it at a school board meeting (it does make me wonder how many people supported budget cuts before, actually). Sports programs are being cut, and after-school programs aren't getting funding. Honestly, raising taxes is the only "good" solution, but Americans don't want to sacrifice anything. You can either have less money but more benefits, or more money and less benefits. We should be doing the former, but the latter is being done, and quite frankly, it makes me feel like society is turning into survival of the fittest.

 

Also, I did good on the first half of the quiz, but pretty darn awful on the second half, with the exception of the last four or five questions.

[urluckyday]

Sports programs are being cut, and after-school programs aren't getting funding.

 

Your school should adopt a pay-to-play format that is gaining popularity around the country. Each student who participates in athletics has to pay like 200 bucks (I think per year) with a limit of like 400 bucks (if you have more than 2 kids in athletics). It makes a lot of sense to me because being a student comes before being an athlete.

[Tysyacha]

Ping,

 

I'm an American, too, and I'm rather ashamed to admit that I got 2 questions wrong. "The Federalist Papers?" The title of that document brought up a shadow of a trace of a vaguely blurry memory of learning about that, but the WRITERS? Come on. I also thought that a certain illustrious co-author of the Declaration of Independence was involved. I also misnamed the president of the United States during World War I. 8/10 isn't bad, though, if I do say so.

 

At your school, what do you think of the quality of the teaching there? You're pretty darn intelligent (excuse my Redneckese ), so what's your perspective on the education system today? I'm 31, and haven't been "in the loop" for years when it comes to schools, However, my inquiring mind wants to know!

[mimartin]

Your school should adopt a pay-to-play format that is gaining popularity around the country. Each student who participates in athletics has to pay like 200 bucks (I think per year) with a limit of like 400 bucks (if you have more than 2 kids in athletics). It makes a lot of sense to me because being a student comes before being an athlete.

 

Sound like a good way to cut out the poor out of athletics to me or another way add the same problems with college sports into high schools and junior highs. Not to mention it does real damage to the pass to play rule. I know some parents would be really upset to pay and have their kid not play.

[urluckyday]

Sound like a good way to cut out the poor out of athletics to me or another way add the same problems with college sports into high schools and junior highs. Not to mention it does real damage to the pass to play rule. I know some parents would be really upset to pay and have their kid not play.

 

Since when was it considered a RIGHT to play high school athletics for anyone? It's a priviledge plain and simple. (Also, I'm pretty sure that fee is waived for people that also have to get subsidized lunches, so I wouldn't worry about the poor). To me, it seems like a perfectly reasonable way to not only KEEP sports teams (rather than cutting them as someone mentioned) but also keep the money where it supposedly belongs...in the classroom (although that part still bewilders me).

[mimartin]

Like I wrote before this will only open up the same problems we have today in college sports. So much for amateur sports in this country. Also guess there is no value in teaching kids discipline, teamwork or sportsmanship.

 

Personally I learn more, that I use every day, on the Junior High/High School field/court than what I use from Jr/High School classrooms.

[Working Class Hero]

Pretty soon kids will have to pay for their art supplies and lunch, too.

Oh, wait....

[Primogen]

Art class is the most pointless thing in the world anyway.

[Liverandbacon]

Personally I learned more, that I use every day, on the Junior High/High School field/court than what I use from Jr/High School classrooms.

 

Same here, though for me it was river/gym, and was a non-school team, but nonetheless during my time in HS.

 

Getting used to working with a team, dealing with pain, getting stronger, managing time effectively, and having dubiously sane former Soviet (and a token American) Olympians shouting at me to pull harder has done a lot for me.

 

The same can not be said for most of the learning I did during HS. It made me hate subjects I had previously been interested in, and once I got to university, I found out that, within the scope of my major at least, almost all of what I had learned was at best a gross oversimplification (even some stuff that had been presented as fact).

 

Since I'm really not in a debating mood right now, I'm not going to weigh in on where our budget should or shouldn't be allocated. I will say however, that cutting down on the oft-rampant misspending within each sector would help. But that's a pipe dream that'll have to wait until politicians and inexplicably high-level bureaucrats stop thinking they know better than everyone else. Read: Never.

 

Edit: And yes, Art class is pointless. If a kid likes art, they'll know it, and can learn better outside a high school classroom. For the others, it's just a waste of time. I probably turned against art class during elementary school (I was 8 I think) where we had to draw an elf, and the teacher said "Why are you drawing it like that? That isn't what elves look like." I told her that since there's no such thing as elves, I figured we could draw how we envision an elf. I also mentioned that we were always told to use our imaginations in art, that her idea of an elf was no more valid than mine, and that if we really had to draw a 'real' elf, we'd need to burn the paper so that there was nothing left, because elves are nothing.

 

She sent me to the principal's office with a note saying that I "disrespected her authority". He was a pretty cool guy though, laughed at her when I explained, and I got to chill for the rest of the period instead of being 'taught' art. She later objected when we had to draw what we wanted to be when we grew up and I drew a terminator (I'd just seen the second one). Apparently I couldn't be a cyborg because the technology didn't exist (I told her it might when I grew up). That bitch hated me.

[Primogen]

Well, no matter how far technology advances, you're never going to be able to be a Terminator - Terminators are robots, not cyborgs. The only human element is vat-grown skin and flesh coverings to conceal their metal skeleton.

[urluckyday]

Like I wrote before this will only open up the same problems we have today in college sports. So much for amateur sports in this country. Also guess there is no value in teaching kids discipline, teamwork or sportsmanship.

 

What problems do we have in college sports right now that would be created by doing it this way? There are MUCH bigger issues in college sports (like student athletes essentially getting free rides even if they have the intelligence of a 5 year-old), and I don't see how this even relates to something like that.

 

Also, they teach discipline, teamwork, and sportsmanship in gym if they do it right. See, it doesn't take a whole lot of money to fix the education system...it just takes a little creative thinking which I think people are sorely lacking in this day and age.

 

Edit: And yes, Art class is pointless. If a kid likes art, they'll know it, and can learn better outside a high school classroom.

 

And the same can be said for athletics. If a kid needs athletics and refuses to pay for it through the pay-for-play model, join a recreational team (which usually costs like $30-$100 a season depending on the sport).

 

I'm as athletic as a nerd comes because I absolutely love sports, but you know, people really need to look hard at what school is really about. Since when is playing a sport more important than getting a well-rounded education and going to college? Cutting the "arts" is usually what happens at the first sign of budget woes, and I've never understood the reasoning other than people just being ignorant.

 

There shouldn't be any excuse as for why people need to play athletics over getting a good education. Only about 6% of high school athletes end up going on to play sports on a varsity level in college, so I don't understand why people don't actually pay MORE attention to the education of students...rather than their athletic abilities.

[JediMaster12]

Yeah, they acually voted on it before it was written out. The document was voted on and approved July 2, but they signed a copy 2 days later. The act itself was declared July 2, but the document wasn't actually filed until August 2 in Philly.

 

You are actually right and when the copies were distributed for the 4th only John Hancock and Mr. Charles Thompson's signatures were on it. It took unilt I believe 1871 for the last signature to be obtained.

 

Cutting the "arts" is usually what happens at the first sign of budget woes, and I've never understood the reasoning other than people just being ignorant.

 

I don't know about ignorance. I would rather say stupidity. The hype I've seen on TV adverts is that science and math are important. Well the other stuff is important too.

 

I noticed that there was a spiel on college athletics and to be honest I really think that people have forgotten that when it comes to student athletes, student comes first. urluckyday made a point about the percentages of athletes going pro and I honestly believe that we here in the United States place WAY too much emphasis on team sports. I have seen how parents act at their kids' team events and I am appalled by it. Maybe we are getting stupider in certain areas and it is apparent we haven't learned the lesson yet.

[mimartin]

What problems do we have in college sports right now that would be created by doing it this way? [/qUOTE]Really need to ask this?

 

Boasters and alumnus paying elite athletics to play sports at their school, pretty sure it has been in all the papers.

 

Don't really care one way or another. Football, basketball makes money for most Texas high schools. However gender equity makes it so schools have to field unprofitable sports too.

[Lord of Hunger]

America's a big place constantly being bombarded by information tech and entertainment news. If Americans are stupid, it may be that we are assumed to be so all the time, and that includes of each other.

 

In fact, I'd say America has a major self-fulfilling image problem. Relatively, our situation could be far worse in regards to available resources and opportunities. Our politicians don't lead us either.