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My first thought was to post this in the Education forum, but then I decided the debates forum would be better suited. By posting it here, I sure hope the teachers/educators on CD respond as I would like to hear their opinions.
I ran across this article the other day and was impressed by the questions ask on this test for 8th graders. The student had to pass this test in order to move up to the next grade level. I cannot say for sure if this was the actual questions ask for these students, but I have found several links on the web to the same test.
My debate issue is .. do you think the educational system today is providing real substance to their classroom curriculum that challenges the student as in the older days as shown in this 8th grader test of over 100 years ago..? Or is there something else going on in the schools today and if so, why are not these kids getting a real education..?
IMO I believe the educational system in parts of our country are very lacking on the material and grading of students today from grade school up to the high school level. I also believe that many of the teachers out in these schools are not qualified to teach.
Be careful when drawing comparisons between education today and 100 years ago.
Compulsary education through the end of high school is a relatively new concept. In 1910, only 35% of 17 year olds were in high school, and a full half of the population didn't get past 8th grade. (A Short History of United States' Education)
Only 13.5% of students *finished* high school and a miniscule 2.7% of the population graduated from college. (Educational Attainment)
Students taking this test likely would have been the "elite," college-bound kids. In terms of today's kids, it'd be like the students taking AP classes versus those in trade school.
As to whether today's kids could pass that test? Perhaps not the section on diagramming sentences (does anyone do that anymore?), but 8th grade students in my state have to pass lengthy End-of-Course exams in math, science, social studies, and reading. These tests are required of ALL students except for a few that are exempted because of intellectual disabilities. I don't think they'd have any problem with the majority of the questions.
I don't see anything particularly odd or hard about that test. Remember that a lot of kids only made it to 8th grade, and the skills taught were those needed to succeed as an adult in that society. Also remember that the only major distractions were church and work at home. No tv, no radio, and in many areas a very limited access to books.
My mother taught in a one room school at the beginning of her career. When she finally retired in the early 1970s she had become totally disgusted with what had happened to the teaching profession.
There has been a lot of whining about Bush's "no child left behind", but to me that act was probably the best action that he took as a President. Yes, it has flaws and the standardization is annoying and capricious, but the unions had become unmanageable and completely out-of-touch with their basic purpose. I was not surprised in the least by the chorus of complaints. Schools had increasingly grown to be places to train a few promising athletes, while acting as warehouses for the rest of students.
I speak from a pretty solid knowledge base. I used to hire kids working in movie theatres. I have moved around, so I have first hand knowledge of the end product of schools in various areas. The northeast in the 1970s was excellent. Kids were easily able to sell multiple concession items and hand back change without resorting to pencil and paper. The Bible belt was fine on the basics like math, but horribly lacking in what we used to call social studies. The world at large was intentionally filtered out of the schools and environment. Even the national bookstores had a more limited selection in that area back in the 1980s. The worst however, by a huge margin, was the Miami-Dade skul sistim in south Florida. We regularly had kids coming to the theatres, asking for a job, only to find that they could not get halfway through an application form that was written in language a normal third grader could understand.
Private and church schools weren't that much better in south Florida. A neighbor kid used to come over to our house with his homework from time to time. He was a bright kid, graduated high in his class, went on to graduate from law school, but his writing skills in high school had been woefully neglected.
The world has been changing over the past hundred years since that test. If anything, the need for unskilled labor has dropped by at least 90%. To see that the test covers areas that many "educated" adults today wouldn't comprehend is troubling.
It's nice to know that in 1910 grammar and expository writing were still taught. I don't know why many public schools abandoned teaching grammar closer to the middle of the last century.
US History is no longer taught in 8th grade. It's taught in highschool. Math I've never been good at, lol! I've heard geography isn't taught much in school, or if it is, many students don't internalize it. Americans are notorious for being out to lunch on geography.
In 1910 class sizes were much smaller, and teachers didn't have disabled kids of various sorts to deal with in the classroom. Teachers have so much more on their plates today than in simpler times. I'd like to see this topic posted on the Education forum. I'm sure the teachers there would have quite a bit to say about this.
Mother graduated in 1934 - the last year phonics was taught. She went on to Business School, worked for CAT during the war and took a Red Cross Class in baby when she was pregnant that covered illness and wound care.
In 1950 schools were still teaching the 3 R's. history, geography and the Palmer Method of Cursive writing. To this day we still have a National Spelling Bee. I think it is 1967/68 the schosl stopped teaching the old math 1+1=2 and introduced the advanced math. It was in the 1990s the new English was introduced.
My grandmothers were born in the 1880s. One did not go to school; the other finished 4th grade. By the time I was in 8th Grade I realized they were smart and literate.
I had a 1910 book for 8th Grade. These kids were learning subjects in Health Class that might be taught in senior high school Science Class today, but I seriously doubt it.
Mother graduated in 1934 - the last year phonics was taught. She went on to Business School, worked for CAT during the war and took a Red Cross Class in baby when she was pregnant that covered illness and wound care.
In 1950 schools were still teaching the 3 R's. history, geography and the Palmer Method of Cursive writing. To this day we still have a National Spelling Bee. I think it is 1967/68 the schosl stopped teaching the old math 1+1=2 and introduced the advanced math. It was in the 1990s the new English was introduced.
My grandmothers were born in the 1880s. One did not go to school; the other finished 4th grade. By the time I was in 8th Grade I realized they were smart and literate.
I had a 1910 book for 8th Grade. These kids were learning subjects in Health Class that might be taught in senior high school Science Class today, but I seriously doubt it.
What a great post!
What "new English"?? What is that?
Phonics continued to be taught in private schools around the country, and probably in some public school districts as well. Where did your mom live?
One of my grandmothers was born around the same time as yours. She went all the way through university. Mills College was a women's college that was relatively new in her time, but it's still there today, in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Very interesting article and list of questions. I'm sure a lot of people are asking, "Am I smarter than a 1910 8th grader?" -- I was surprised when I looked at the test and saw how comprehensive it was; ... guess I was expecting something more along the lines of 'Little house on the prarie' 'readin, writin and rithmatic' ---
I wonder if we would not do well today to more thoroughly test students upon completing 8th grade, to identify those perhaps better suited to vocational or Tech schools, instead of college. And then to steer them in that direction and better prepare them for a world where the specialized skills they have developed are valued. Otherwise, dropouts or kids who don't go onto college, wind-up with an often inadequate general education that doesn't prepare them for anything.
The PC notion that everyone needs to be treated the same and have the same opportunity to attend college, leaves many kids behind and/or fails to sufficiently challenge those capable of exceptional achievement. Perhaps it is time to rethink our attitudes toward education ... and the systems necessary to achieve meaningful results.
The PC notion that everyone needs to be treated the same and have the same opportunity to attend college, leaves many kids behind and/or fails to sufficiently challenge those capable of exceptional achievement. Perhaps it is time to rethink our attitudes toward education ... and the systems necessary to achieve meaningful results.
Here's the one problem with that idea. I've seen bright, inquisitive kids shunted into the vocational track in schools. Why would someone do that? Because they system isn't objective. Human bias enters the picture. It's the Native kids, the Black kids, the Hispanic kids who tend to get labeled as slow, even if they're not. If the system were truly impartial and objective, then a European-type system of separate career-path preparation might work.
Another reason some don't like the idea is that sometimes it's the kids with lackluster performance in school who really blossom in college if given a chance, and go on to have very successful careers. I think the journalist and former TV news anchor Charlayne Hunter-Gault was one of those, IIRC. I've met people in Europe who were put on the vocational training track, and felt like their life was over. They were utterly thrilled to be given a chance at a college education when some extraordinary circumstances suddenly opened that door. Suddenly, despair vanished, and their life was full of hope.
Most highschools offer shop class for boys who might want to work as mechanics, don't they? And community colleges offer a lot of vocational education. So our system already offers that. Is there a problem with how it works as it exists now?
I couldn't pass the grammar section of that test. I've never been good at the academic structure of language...though I'm capable of communicating what it is I want to say acceptably well.
The history of America section would have given me problems as well..though I chalk that up to never actually studying it formally.
The physiology section would have required some study on my part...I'm sure if I knew what I was expected to know, I would have known it.
Everything else is pretty basic...stuff I knew when I was a child.
I'm in college so this is alarming to me...I'm sure at one point in time I knew all what was being tested for though. Most of it has been long forgotten...I blame google.
I think I'm going to set some time aside to study grammatical structure.
This is because we care too much about our kids' feelings and less about what is really good for them.
They can be pushed. They can master this material.
You know what's really effin' sad is that most of the people on this forum probably wouldn't get all these questions right.
I don't know when we decided our children were too fragile to meet expectations. At one point in history, a young teen could run a whole farm. Nowadays, people are helpless morons well into their 20s.
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