The state of Education in the USA ?

[Ilsa]

Arkansas' governor was Bill Clinton, who graduated from an Arkansas high school around 1964, I think, was a Rhodes Scholar and got a J.D. from Yale Law School.

Alaska's governor graduated from high school around 1982, I guess, and got a journalism degree. How is it she doesn't appear to have any general knowledge about the world we live in? Could she pass her state's NCLB exam for elementary or high schoolers? Did schooling go to hell in a handbasket in only 18 years?

I never want to hear anyone making fun of my neighbors in Arkansas.

[asksam]

1. Well, that's what you get...

... when you put Rethugs in charge of education... people who don't know that Africa is a continent.

[laconicsax]

2. The intellectual curiousity of a person also plays a key role.

[Ilsa]

3. With something as basic as naming the continents, or the 3 nations in N. America?

Yes, I think intelletual curiosity plays a part in alot of learning, but some things are so elementary. These were two items that I would think any third grader could name.

I guess I have a hard time seeing how anyone who has so little curiosity about the world around her would want to govern it.

[laconicsax]

4. Intellectual curiosity is and has been actively discouraged for generations.

Children are brought up in a culture that teaches them that it is undesirable to know about the world around them. It's better to spend your free time playing sports than reading. It's better to go to an sporting event/amusement park than the aquarium/planetarium/museum. Books are boring. Science is boring. Math is dumb. As long as you know enough to tie your shoelaces and read at a sixth grade level, you're smart enough.

At my last job, I had coworkers who had no idea why we have leap years, why we have time-zones (generally speaking), and what causes the seasons. I'm not at all surprised that Palin lacks what most of us on this board would call basic knowledge and I'm sure that plenty of people, when seeing the reports of just how dumb she is, think to themselves, 'I didn't know that Africa is a continent,' or not even know what a continent is.