I am considering conducting a survey of the teachers and students at school to determine what is the level of misinformation out there. I am not planning on making this controversial stuff, but stuff that i think most (intelligent) people don't know.
What I have so far is:
T or F?
The Gilded Age was a period of minimal government intervention in the economy
The large meatpackers resented the Pure Food and Drug Act
Hoover had a hands-off approach which worsened the Great Depression.
Before the passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act, meatpacking was unregulated.
AT&T was broken up because it had become too large as a free-market company
Add your own! I'd like to see what basic factual mistakes are flying around out there.
I think you should change the wording of the first one, since how can they know what 'minimal' means? Minimal compared to what?
Also a quick suggestion perhaps something like 'FDR lived to see the end of the Great Depression'.
Why would you be going to gov school anyway? Homeschool your kids and teach them skills.
Not everything government is inherently 100% pointless. I can't really be learning advanced Calculus or English analysis from my dad. And I think 17 is a little too young to be thinking about escaping civilization...
Why would you be going to gov school anyway?
What government school did you go to?
F. Lincoln's national banking system was intended to help the people.
T. There exists no evidence that Lincoln had every intention of freeing the slaves well before the Emancipation Proclamation.
F. Progressives were against eugenics.
Wheylous, your questions are primarily economic. I recommend historically broader questions. Try these.
Are all school lessons in US schools about bi-partisan issues? All I learned in the UK was that the Nazi's were c*nts and Henry VIII had six wives.
Oh, and that "In fourteen-ninty-two, Columbus sailed the ocean blue". Imagine that said 50 times in a row in a really droll, monotone voice, and you will get a feeling for the excitment the class felt. Snoooorreeee!!
So, who else liked school?
"I can't really be learning advanced Calculus or English analysis from my dad."
With the internet, homeschooling becomes all the more attractive. The parent in a homeschooling environment doesn't need to be an expert in everything the student is learning. For a paleontology or theoretical physics course, a specialized tutor could be hired, or there are countless youtube videos and other such resources. The problem with gov schools is not that they are pointless, but that they are way too inefficient a model for the 21st century. Schooling would be better if it were left to the free market, but given that it isn't, individuals can still find alternatives pretty easily.
Also, it is a mistake to assume that government schools=civilization.
"Are all school lessons in US schools about bi-partisan issues? All I learned in the UK was that the Nazi's were c*nts and Henry VIII had six wives. "
Uh, well it's a little more substantial than that but I don't know exactly what you mean by "bi-partisan issues". In history classes there's a huge amount of emphasis on American history, here in New York you're required to take 3 years of it in your last 6 years of schooling, and there's three years of "world history", which is mainly about European history as well as the "classical" Ancient civilizations (I.E Rome, Greece, Egypt) and the end of colonialism in India and China. That is, unless you take an AP course on the subject.
Does that answer your question?
The usual stuff.
F. Lincoln's national banking system was intended to help the people. T. There exists no evidence that Lincoln had every intention of freeing the slaves well before the Emancipation Proclamation. F. Progressives were against eugenics.
The last one is nice, but I was hoping to go for something more fact-based rather than analytical (unlike your first question). Also, I sort of don't understand your second one :P
Wheylous, your questions are primarily economic. I recommend historically broader questions.
I'm mainly interested in facts that affect people's economic reasoning.
It's alright :P
The problem with gov schools is not that they are pointless, but that they are way too inefficient a model for the 21st century
I agree, and I wrote my college essay on this, but the reason (one of the main ones, at least) I find government schools inefficient is that they treat kids like elements in an assembly line process - ie, everyone gets taught the same stuff regardless of whether they are interested or not, which is a waste of time for most people. Now, for me, who gets straight As in everything, I find all parts and systems of the world to be interrelated. I love learning models of all kinds, and I enjoy Physics and well as Calculus as well as Econ, English, Research, History, etc. I do not find school to be a very enormous waste of my time. Of course, at some points I wish I could be doing something else, but generally it's fine.
Also, I feel sort of safe knowing the same material that other people get taught. Some of it is actually true stuff (gasp!) while other stuff is good to know so that I can know what people's mindsets are like.
Schooling would be better if it were left to the free market
The statement was directed at Freedom4Me, who is a survivalist, and whose statement about "skills" likely meant bringing down my own deer and foraging for roots and berries. That's what I meant.
Any posts on topic, guys?
One thing about school is that history changes; I remember being taught stuff in elementary school that contradicted what I was taught in high school.
As far as Lincoln/Civil War goes there's a lot of emotion and bias on a lot of sides. Showing that era objectively can be a task, but in my AP history glass in 11th grade we did spend a good amount of time on the Civil War and it was clear Lincoln had no intention to free the slaves, not til the war showed in his favor did he make such claims (claiming all the slaves in the south - the south, whom of which, are currently claiming they are not part of the USA, are free - only when Lincoln feels the war can be won for his agenda). Though that AP class only affected those students, I'm sure 80-90% of high school students believed the myth of the Civil War.
Much of Europe and especially Great Britain were generally supportive of the Confederacy. Lincoln worried that official recognition of the new country by a foreign power would severly weaken his cause. The Emancipation Proclamation turned the war, at least in the Europen point of view, to a war to end slavery, which almost all, if not all, European countries had already done. The North was certainly not winning at the time, but the Proclamation effectivly ended European support for the South.
faber est suae quisque fortunae
T or F
Time Zones were created by the government.