Does college make us more stupider?
There are numerous reports about how in the US, the K through 12 education lags a lot of the industrial world, but we have an overwhelming majority of the World's top universities. However, USA Today had story on a recent finding that college students don't always leave college knowing more than when they entered. At some of our most elite schools, seniors scored lower than freshman on a history test.
The recommendation this group came up with is more history, poly sci and econ classes. I am all for people taking more of these classes, I took a lot of economics, a few political science courses and 2 or 3 American history classes. Yet, my experience with the classes wouldn't have helped my score much. I got all four sample questions correct, though I used an educated guess on the Preamble question, but I am fairly certain I learned none of these answers in college. I was taught Yorktown and All men are created equal in secondary school, and learned the other two answers from watching the news. My recollection of college history is that names, dates, and palces are not stressed much at all. Attention was given on examining events and fitting it into a larger context, such as learning about the long and short term causes of the Civil War as opposed to knowing who won the Battle of Gettysburg.
It was my impression that professors overtaught what interested them, or what their own area of expertise was. One prof spent weeks explaining why progressive reforms such as the ICC, Teddy Roosevelt's trust busting and regulation, and FDR's New Deal weren't progressive, but were tools of the oligarchy to give an inch and take a mile. There was no teaching about the Revolutionary War, nor was their much about the Constitution, or the World Wars. Many college classes have very narrow focuses, one of the history classes I took was Economics in American history. Other options exist such as women in history, Black history, history of pop culture, history of sports and so on, that would not give students a well rounded view of the country from its inception through today. Which is fine, I find all those topics interesting, but not terribly far reaching.
One thing that really stood out was that less than 20% knew that social security is the largest federal expenditure. I got into an arguement with people who are very well educated and they didn't believe me when I asserted that in a discussion. If the question were impossibly difficult, you would expect twenty percent to get it correct, assuming I remember my stats class correctly. That would lead me to believe that students are being taught or led to believe incorrect information. Maybe liberal professors teach or fellow students focus on the US spending too much on the military, so they assume it is the largest program. If students have a lot of conservative instructors, (however unlikely that prospect is) or listen to too much right wing radio, those students might tend to believe welfare or education is the largest.
If I had to venture a guess as to why people do poorly on these tests, I imagine it is a lack of interest in history and civics, and requiring additional class work would do little to increase understanding if the interest just isn't there.
Seniors at selective colleges tended to show less evidence they gained
knowledge in civics-related subjects than students at more representative
colleges. At 16 schools, including Brown, Cornell and Yale, seniors scored lower
than freshmen.
The recommendation this group came up with is more history, poly sci and econ classes. I am all for people taking more of these classes, I took a lot of economics, a few political science courses and 2 or 3 American history classes. Yet, my experience with the classes wouldn't have helped my score much. I got all four sample questions correct, though I used an educated guess on the Preamble question, but I am fairly certain I learned none of these answers in college. I was taught Yorktown and All men are created equal in secondary school, and learned the other two answers from watching the news. My recollection of college history is that names, dates, and palces are not stressed much at all. Attention was given on examining events and fitting it into a larger context, such as learning about the long and short term causes of the Civil War as opposed to knowing who won the Battle of Gettysburg.
It was my impression that professors overtaught what interested them, or what their own area of expertise was. One prof spent weeks explaining why progressive reforms such as the ICC, Teddy Roosevelt's trust busting and regulation, and FDR's New Deal weren't progressive, but were tools of the oligarchy to give an inch and take a mile. There was no teaching about the Revolutionary War, nor was their much about the Constitution, or the World Wars. Many college classes have very narrow focuses, one of the history classes I took was Economics in American history. Other options exist such as women in history, Black history, history of pop culture, history of sports and so on, that would not give students a well rounded view of the country from its inception through today. Which is fine, I find all those topics interesting, but not terribly far reaching.
One thing that really stood out was that less than 20% knew that social security is the largest federal expenditure. I got into an arguement with people who are very well educated and they didn't believe me when I asserted that in a discussion. If the question were impossibly difficult, you would expect twenty percent to get it correct, assuming I remember my stats class correctly. That would lead me to believe that students are being taught or led to believe incorrect information. Maybe liberal professors teach or fellow students focus on the US spending too much on the military, so they assume it is the largest program. If students have a lot of conservative instructors, (however unlikely that prospect is) or listen to too much right wing radio, those students might tend to believe welfare or education is the largest.
If I had to venture a guess as to why people do poorly on these tests, I imagine it is a lack of interest in history and civics, and requiring additional class work would do little to increase understanding if the interest just isn't there.
posted by Doug at 4:06 PM
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