Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor ? -- College Students Asked About World War II

[jakeXT]

When college students' knowledge of World War II is put to the test, many are in the dark. Actually, some are entirely clueless.

You might think it wouldn't be too hard to answer questions like, "What year did WWII begin?" or "Can you name one Axis power?"

You'd be wrong.

When asked to name three Allied powers, one hopeless girl answered "Alaska." When asked to name one Allied leader, not one, but two people named Adolf Hitler. Seriously?? Oh, and just to clarify, WWII did not begin in 1847.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/28/college-students-world-war-ii-history-questions-video_n_4680470.html

[liberal N proud]

1. Thank you standardized tests

Schools don't teach history damiming us to repeat it!

[Scootaloo]

3. Please. As if ignorance is stuck to one age group

We've still got the aging crop of people who think Woodstock ended Vietnam.

Americans as a group have always been abysmally bad at history.

[another_liberal]

8. You actually know an "aging" person (let alone a "crop") who thinks . . .

Woodstock ended the Vietnam War?

[Scootaloo]

9. It's a bit of hyperbole, yes

The crux being that a very large number of Americans are convinced that American citizens being against the Vietnam War was the core impetus on the war's ending - rather than the reality of the situation which is that the Vietnamese defeated the United States. It couldn't have had anything to do with a skillful and tenuous guerrilla war with huge popular support by the people of Vietnam, it was protest songs and peace signs that did the beast in!

[another_liberal]

12. I see what you mean.

"We defeated ourselves," is a lot easier to accept than, "We got kicked out of Vietnam."

[Scootaloo]

15. That, yes

And overall, Americans are just bad at history.

[liberal N proud]

17. The OP was about College Students who did not know the history of WWII

This is an age group who grew up in the midst of bu$h's standardized tests and thus were not taught world history. I have two kids 20 and 26, that if you asked them about an event in the past, they would give you an I don't know stare.

Is ignorance ageless? If it were not, we wouldn't have republicans in Congress. With regard to Vietnam, I grew up as that war went on and on and on, turning 18 just as it and the draft ended. In my rear view, it appears that the American people simply were fed up with sending young men to die in a jungle. With the vision of the subsequent wars, it appears that Vietnam was the first war to support the military industrial complex.

But some still like to blame the hippies of Woodstock.

[Thirties Child]

2. World War Eleven

We saw a woman kneeling with her young son is front of a monument that read World War II, and heard her tell him this was World War Eleven.

[Mass]

4. I would think they should have learned the basics in HS, for questions like that.

[chuckstevens]

5. Keep Kids Stupid like the Koch Brothers Want

It is no accident that public education has been dumbed down and there is a hysteria over standardized test scores by school districts. The powers that be don't want kids to know about things like the late 1800's Labor Movement, the Progressive backlash to the Robber Barons, The Red Scare of 1920's, New Deal programs, the evils of fascism, McCarthyism, or Vietnam because then they might learn to question authority and start thinking for themselves.

Much as young people in the 1960's said, "Hell No We Won't Go" to Vietnam, there needs to be an upraising where teachers and administrators together say, "Hell No; We're not taking these dam tests anymore."

[progressoid]

6. So what does a video called "guys vs girls" have to do with it?

If you did the same video in my home town, the girls would know the answers and the boys would be saying, "ummmm".

[jakeXT]

7. The video was included in the article, but the interviewer doesn't sound like he knows much either

When a girl answers, that the US joined the War more after Pearl Harbor, he is surprised.
He has probably never heard of Land-Lease, which began before Pearl Harbor.

[Ash_F]

10. I noticed that that too.

Not to mention that the US was on a collision course with Japan over the Dutch East Indies. It's funny how all the grey areas of the war are not "common knowledge".

"Don't invade this other country or it's war between us" Means there is a reasonable argument that you started it. Not that I think US was fully or even mostly responsible. Japanese were being brutal colonialists, something I have past criticized Western nations for.

She was inadvertently right!

[Neoma]

11. As a college "kid"...

I used to hate the WWII subject because my brother's life surrounded airplanes, sharks and WWII constantly during our childhood. This is explained pretty easily I suppose. He watched the History channel and Discovery channel constantly.

Now however, I know quite a bit. I say my brother was into WWII stuff, what I really mean is nerdy military crap about what weapons and tanks were named, etc. I was into the holocaust stories. Eventually this evolved interest into other WWII topics. But I'm not memorizing what guns are named what.

[Ed Suspicious]

13. I am a non-traditional college student taking the opportunity to pursue my degree while rapidly

approaching 40. This implication that college students are uneducated has not been my experience. Mostly, at least within the circles I travel at school, students are bright and know how to access the information they need. They are smart kids - way smarter than I was when I was leaving high school.

[Ed Suspicious]

14. I just finished a three week interim modern US history course. 200+ students. When we arrived

at WW2, the room lit up with probing and intelligent questions and insights. The kids in this class were smart and eager to be informed. I have never been in such a vibrant gen ed class. The professor, Dr. Pickron, was an exceptional lecturer, so maybe that helped, but I was impressed by what I saw.

[FrodosPet]

16. History is not important unless you plan on teaching history

Just like algebra and geometry are not important unless you are teaching math or a scientist or something.