Oh my. I can relate!
Green-Eyed Lady | Homepage | 10.16.05 - 3:47 am | #

What the heck are kids being taught??
Theresa | Homepage | 10.16.05 - 9:08 am | #

Oh PLEASE tell me you are kidding about these!
Christine | Homepage | 10.16.05 - 10:24 am | #

Wait a minute...very confused now...what do you teach again?
Sarah | Homepage | 10.16.05 - 10:32 am | #

All I know is, I want you for a teacher next semester.
Candy | Homepage | 10.16.05 - 11:22 am | #

Very, very frightening. Not surprising, unfortunately, but frightening.

-G
Garrison Steelle | Homepage | 10.16.05 - 11:30 am | #

Oh, I'm depressed now.
Bronwen | Homepage | 10.16.05 - 1:34 pm | #

That's...pretty bad.
Arethusa | Homepage | 10.16.05 - 2:28 pm | #

I knew all of those except the one about Emma. But I'm guessing her poem went something like this:

Emma Lazarus would not beg;

She could because she had just one leg.

And she said I'm no cook,

Without recipe book,

So I cannot fry you an egg.
Old Horsetail Snake | Homepage | 10.16.05 - 3:43 pm | #

I was pretty embarrassed because I didn't know what Emma Lazarus's poem was... but I do now. I'm so happy
Goldie | Homepage | 10.16.05 - 4:05 pm | #

"Give me your tired, your poor..."--teachers, that is. Did you forget that, if the question isn't on ISTEP, then there's no reason to teach it? Good god, girl!
DG | 10.16.05 - 4:53 pm | #

Does it make you feel better that I knew all but one of those? I don't know the famous poem. *wink*
Crystal | Homepage | 10.16.05 - 5:56 pm | #

I knew all but the Emma Lazurus one. How bad is that?
Em | Homepage | 10.16.05 - 10:02 pm | #

I knew them all.

*patting self on back*

However, I am very afraid for my future.
buffi | Homepage | 10.16.05 - 11:17 pm | #

Ok I must admit (with a shamed face) that I knew the poem but did not know who wrote it. After I Googled it I banged my head on the wall. I'm tired!
Hula Doula | Homepage | 10.17.05 - 12:07 am | #

I'm with Hula--I know the poem but didn't know the author. Perhaps the previous statement should have been a clue--I'm blaming the drugs.
sophie | Homepage | 10.17.05 - 12:46 pm | #

Are you kidding? I cannot believe the kids today don't know most of that stuff. That's scary!
kenju | Homepage | 10.17.05 - 3:35 pm | #

OK, I got 100% of these but then I think they ought to be common knowledge. Very sad that today's culture is encouraging celebrity, video game, and sports hero worship and very little in the way of real cultural import. I sometimes shudder to think what this generation of kids are going to be like as adults!
Denise | Homepage | 10.17.05 - 7:50 pm | #

Well, I know all of that except the Emma Lazarus poem. I may know it if I saw it, but it's not ringing any bells right now.

Some of that stuff is just unbelievable.. how can you NOT know that stuff?
Shylah | Homepage | 10.17.05 - 10:49 pm | #

Scary.

My first week of grad school, and I am at the #1 ranked grad program for social work in the USA. I am in a classroom, getting ready to take a test so I would not have to pay for a human behavior class. Just before the test started, another student leaned over and whispered, "Pssst...what do you know about Skinner?" I shrugged my shoulders--I did not have to take the class, but the person who who asked me the question left ~5 minutes after the test started.
Beth | 10.17.05 - 11:47 pm | #

OH MY..college these days ..kids should go back and do high school and elementary over again. WHAT is this world coming to..this is so depressing.........carol
Caroldee | Homepage | 10.18.05 - 12:00 am | #

In terms of any kind of national culture, not only is it awful they don't know much of anything I know -- I don't know the things they take for granted, either. Big divide ahead.
dilys | Homepage | 10.19.05 - 9:42 am | #