Clipping

[Fred W. Schneider III]

Dennis:

History went into the ash can along with geography.  How many seniors in
high school could point to a map and identify North America, the Suez
Canal, China, Russa, Syria, Israel, Canada, Japan, Germany and South
Africa. I just picked out some simple things.  I'm not expecting any kid
to know where Ottawa is or even know that there is one in Ontario and
another in Illinois.

Jim Henwood once told me he gave freshmen entering the US history
courses he taught at East Stroudsburg University a test on the very
first day ... simple questions like who was the first US president? List
one root cause of the civil war. Tell us who was president during the
Civil War.  Did we ever explode a nuclear device on another country?  He
explained that the average grade was about 40%.  I had dinner with Jim
on the first day of the new semester one year.  He gave me an example of
one question, "Fred, who was Thomas Jefferson?"  I answered, "Can
remember which ... second or third President, gentlemen farmer from
Virginia, founder of the University of Virginia, inventor, signer of the
Declaration of Independence."  Jim remarked that he would have accepted
any one of those but that six out of ten students never heard of
Jefferson, and that one "student" claimed he was the founder of the
"Jefferson Airplane" music group. 

And there was another great laugh if we can laugh at ignorance. 
Lybarger and Swindler were there when it happened.  The time frame was
just after we learned that the Americans and the British were the worst
in the world when it came to the National Geographic exam (the questions
in which mirror those in my first paragraph).  I really could not
believe it was all that bad.  So, when the waitress came over, I set her
up. "Miss, we're from Ohio.  Just passing through in route to a meeting
in Philadelphia tomorrow.  I thought the state capitol is near here. 
Can you tell me where?"  Her answer:  "I don't know.  I don't have to
know because I'm not in school any more."  We were dining in Hampton
Township, Cumberland County, about 10 miles west of Harrisburg, the
capital city and the capitol building.

So how do we correct those problems at the museum?   

"Dennis F. Cramer" wrote:
> 
>     Would not it be wonderful if all corporations took such "scrupulous
> regard for the rights and interests of the investors should as the first
> consideration.  Economical construction, careful and economical management,
> the issues of as much stock or as many bonds as are required to build the
> road, and not one dollar more, these are the main elements of safety and
> success."
> 
>     The parallel between the turn of the twentieth century and the turn of
> this century is remarkable.  Today we are trying to convince people the
> business world must revolve around Internet corporations (how many of them
> have already gone belly up?) and that we must invest our political dollars
> in a new transportation form to keep ahead of the future that we are already
> miserably behind.
> 
>     Thank you, Fred for your continued research into the past.  We must
> continue to study the past so we do not make the same mistakes over and
> over.  Some day we will figure this out.  (As soon as the schools figure out
> how to teach history!)
> 
> Dennis F. Cramer--Teacher-Trombonist-Historian-Conductor
> www.geocities.com/armconband