<p>“e you really equating the Staten Island ferry and the NY boroughs with the Berlin wall?”</p>
<p>I am making the point that people from other countries often aren’t very informed, either. i see their ignorance every single day because I work in Times Square and if you think Americans are ugly, you should seem some of the tourists that cross my path every day. I wouldn’t think that my personal experience is indicative of the whole world, but we’ve had a lot of Russian tourists lately and I can tel you they’re not my favorite. I’m not defensive, Garland, but it seems as if others here are when their superiority is challenged. I think we can definitely do better and should, but I don’t gain my self esteem by thinking myself better than anyone else. I’d love to discuss possible improvements to the edcational system, but I don’t think Americans are innately ignorant, crass or lazy.</p>
<p>I agree with the poster that says that the problem here is not so much lack of education as refusal to admit lack of said education. For many, many people I meet, the rallying cry is “don’t bother me with the facts; I already know what I think.” Or worse, “don’t tell me my facts are wrong; I got a right to believe whatever I want”</p>
<p>How about this: Don’t bother me with facts that don’t help me get food on my table or get me to work every day. The broader point I’m trying to make is that even in America many people are just trying to live their lives every day and the decision to make a great education a priority is a luxury for those who can avail themselves. Like someone said on another thread about her child being assigned a trip to the supermarket to compare prices as homework. In that family with several little kids, that was a luxury of time they couldn’t afford at that time. It is appalling that a young woman would go to Germany without knowing about the Berlin wall, but it says an awful lot about her family and herself, but who knows what it really says about an entire nation.</p>
<p>As a high school student, I can tell you that most of my peers were shocked to find out last year that the Soviet Union existed until shortly before their births. Why? Because that was the first time anyone had ever told them.</p>
<p>My daughter in London was shocked that the British students were just as interested as the American students in following the US primary races. She said that there is no real distinction between national and international news there.</p>
<p>So I do think attitudes are different in other countries.</p>
<p>And I think knowledge is never ivory tower. There’s no telling when something we know explains something else we don’t know that is essential to what we’re doing in the moment.</p>
<p>I really think knowing all sorts of information creates a net that can then hold new information. If the net is too coarse, i.e. not enough background information, new information is easily lost without a system to hold it in and evaluate it.</p>
<p>I would not agree that knowing where Wales is (something none of my students have ever known when it comes up in relationship to literature) is unimportant. Knowing about Wales leads to an understanding of the coal mining industry which leads to more informed choices about strip mining, etc. A lot of knowledge is like this. The use is not immediately discernable, but it does eventually get put to use.</p>
<p>Many important scientific discoveries are made doing “idle research” with no immediate applicability.</p>
<p>I sure hope that we all aren’t that self-centered (and I don’t beileve most Americans are). And those most at risk for not being able to get food on the table are probably those most in need of understanding what is going on that is causing that to be true.</p>
<p>“A lot of knowledge is like this. The use is not immediately discernable, but it does eventually get put to use.”</p>
<p>Without question, I totally agree. But, seriously, many things are taught in school and then promptly forgotten. Is there a point at which personal responsibility or even sensibility comes into play, as opposed to condemnation of the educational establishment and an entire nation? Schools can only do so much and if people aren’t going to read or become informed on their own, that’s not necessarily a collective failing.</p>
<p>“I sure hope that we all aren’t that self-centered (and I don’t beileve most Americans are). And those most at risk for not being able to get food on the table are probably those most in need of understanding what is going on that is causing that to be true”</p>
<p>Being self-centered is not a bad thing when you are the one struggling. I’m still making the point that having the time and opportunity to worry about more than getting by is a luxury that not everyone shares.</p>
<p>The opening post described someone expounding on current events based on wildly inaccurate knowledge of recent American history. So that’s not what we’re talking about.</p>
<p>My students, who go to school full time and often work full time (and often parent) can find the time to think about something besides themselves. I don’t buy that this is a luxury. Unless you live in a box with no connection to the outside world, it’s part of being a citizen, out of self-protection, as well as out of civic duty.</p>
<p>My daughter taught a GED class at Columbia. Some of the students were immigrants, but many of them weren’t. Many had never heard of the American Revolution or George Washington. She was most concerned with the woman who was most hostile to what DD was trying to teach. She sat with her head turned away from instructor (D) texting, doing her nails, etc. Then one day she brought her four-year-old to the class. D was worried about this child getting any help with her homework and making it through her education.</p>
<p>My H is a very bright man but allergic to a lot of knowledge. He has a BS, an MA and is completing an MFA. I can state with great assurance that he doesn’t learn things so that the facts won’t interfere with his fantasy version of reality. Unfortunately, this kind of denial is present when students say things like, “America is number one in everything.” </p>
<p>Without knowledge how can we expect voters to distinguish between Afghanistan, Al Quaeda and Iraq? </p>
<p>Without knowledge how can we expect voters to evaluate a health care plan, a social security plan, an energy plan or foreign policy?</p>
<p>Unfortunately, it’s the people who are struggle who are most often taken advantage of, and their lack of knowledge makes it easier to do this. And I am talking about people on both sides of the aisle.</p>
<p>"Unfortunately, it’s the people who are struggle who are most often taken advantage of, and their lack of knowledge makes it easier to do this. And I am talking about people on both sides of the aisle. "</p>
<p>Of course you are you’re right, without question. Whch is why I take my role as a literacy volunteer so seriously. I am simply taking the opposing position here that there is more to this than the ugly American stereotype (“How ignorant are American?” "Americans are so ignorant _______) Reading through the earlier posts on this thread, it seemed as though a differing point of view would be helpful and I still think so. If it offends anyone that not everyone wants to high-five and share feelings of superiority, then I apologize.</p>
<p>The irony is that lack of education actually gives way to oligarchy or plutocracy. Stupid people don’t demand less of their governments, the governments learn how to appease people in their statements, and the check of popular will and wisdom is eroded.</p>
<p>How many people would have polled in favor of the invasion of Iraq if they had realized that Saddam’s political party and his background as a socialist actually put him at odds with Islamic religious fanatics?</p>
<p>Given our role in the world, it is incumbent upon US citizenry to inform themselves and vote. But I am not optimistic in this regard. I think we are a country largely of yahoos, not because we are inherently less intelligent but because our standards across the board are too low.</p>
<p>I think of an friend of mine whose father (in his native India) preserved each sheet of paper on which he did his math homework, took it back after his homework had been graded and erased it in order to re-use it. If Americans treated knowledge and education like this, they’d be unstoppable.(This gentleman eventually became a professor in the US, so at least on some level as a country we have benefitted from his drive.)</p>
<p>Zoosermom–I guess I just didn’t read the earlier posts the way you did–I saw no “high-fiving”, just a lot of dismay at a trend among many to disdain knowledge and the curiosity and questioning to expand that knowledge. A dismay which I share.</p>
<p>“Without knowledge how can we expect voters to evaluate a health care plan, a social security plan, an energy plan or foreign policy?”</p>
<p>We, as voters, will not get the opportunity to evaluate any of things. We only get promises that these things will be addressed by our representatives. By the time the plans are finalized, a bridge to nowhere will been added and there will be a museum in Woodstock.</p>
<p>“Zoosermom–I guess I just didn’t read the earlier posts the way you did–I saw no “high-fiving”, just a lot of dismay at a trend among many to disdain knowledge and the curiosity and questioning to expand that knowledge. A dismay which I share.”</p>
<p>I share dismay on an individual basis, but I think America is too large and too diverse for a group of idiots to be fully reflective of the whole. I also think that with regard to those individuals, many could be curious and questioning on all sorts of things but have gaps or blind spots. Can we all say that we are equally well-informed on all subjects or do we have passions and interests which might skew the level of education in one direction or another? If questioned on a subject for which we have no interest, might we sound in that snapshot, ignorant and informed, despite being very well informed on a whole range of ofther things? And yes, I do think there was an element of smugness.</p>
<p>But again, the examples given weren’t people flunking a test of knowledge about which they had no interest, but folks expounding like experts and impervious to their errors. </p>
<p>We’ll have to disagree on the smugness. I really think you’re reading that into it.</p>
<p>This is nothing new. In fact the “City Upon the Hill,” meant a breaking of the old ways. We were a new society, the model. Old, tired Europe had nothing to offer.</p>
<p>This country has been subject to a wide variety of fanatical beliefs throughout its history. Frankly, the Enlightenment only seems to impacted about 20 people here and most of them have been dead for over 200 years. </p>
<p>In an egalitarian society, which, we like to think we are, all beliefs are equal, and that includes knowing nothing. We do the latter very well.</p>
<p>“But again, the examples given weren’t people flunking a test of knowledge about which they had no interest, but folks expounding like experts and impervious to their errors.”</p>
<p>It would be hard to know that in this context, and there were different examples offered, as well. And, again, I would say that individuals are responsible for themselves and aren’t necessarily reflective of the whole.</p>
<p>“We’ll have to disagree on the smugness. I really think you’re reading that into it.”</p>
<p>Agree to disagree. We are, perhaps, looking at the same thing from opposite directions. But I hope you do know that I respect your posts very much.</p>
<p>zoosermom: I happen to agree that Americans are on the whole not more ignorant than people in other countries. However, for those of us who come from other countries with different cultures, there is one very obvious thing that Americans are often very ignorant about: non-American current events, geography, history, culture etc.</p>
<p>While many Americans are very, very intelligent and well-informed, the contradiction present when one probes their knowledge of things outside America’s border can be shocking. This may not be totally unique to America, but it’s certainly more nationalistic here (in the sense of being very focused on America at the expense of the rest of the world) than in most other places I’ve been.</p>
<p>“zoosermom: I happen to agree that Americans are on the whole not more ignorant than people in other countries. However, for those of us who come from other countries with different cultures, there is one very obvious thing that Americans are often very ignorant about: non-American current events, geography, history, culture etc.”</p>
<p>I think that’s a pretty fair statement. </p>
<p>I wonder how much of that, if any, is a result of the fact that we’re such a large nation. In other words, if a person in Spain is familiar with events in Belgium, is that similar to a person in Alabama being familiar with what might be going on in New Jersey? One thing that has always amazed me (and I speak for no one but myself) is just how different people are in different regions of America. I find the deep south exotic and fascinating, and my cousins in Texas have a lifestyle that’s nothing like mine.</p>