See--its not just me!!!

USATODAY: Teens losing touch with common cultural and historical references :

"Among 1,200 students surveyed:
•43% knew the Civil War was fought between 1850 and 1900. [geez, you only gave them a 5 decade time frame! what happened to single decade ranges?? are they that dumb? 'hmm, did we fight the civil war this century or last, hmmm]
•52% could identify the theme of '1984'.
•51% knew that the controversy surrounding Sen. Joseph McCarthy focused on communism.
In all, students earned a C in history and an F in literature, though the survey suggests students do well on topics schools cover.
For instance, 88% knew the bombing of Pearl Harbor led the USA into World War II [grandparents and great grandparent stories, that's why], and 97% could identify Martin Luther King Jr. as author of the 'I Have a Dream' speech [but what else can they tell you about the man? not much]
Fewer (77%) knew Uncle Tom's Cabin helped end slavery a century earlier [that is better than when I was in school and the book was banned though...we thought UTC was about camping]

'School has emphasized Martin Luther King, and everybody teaches it, and people are learning it,' says Chester Finn of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, an education think tank. 'What a better thing it would be if people also had the Civil War part and the civil rights part, and the Harriet Tubman part and the Uncle Tom's Cabin part. [what about the Southern states part too....you know there was a reason they went to war and it wasn't just over slavery; in fact it was one of the last issues they had]'"

I have always said that they are forgetting too much of black history when they only focus on MLK & the Civil Rights movement...I'd like to know how many kids realized that Lincoln created the country of Liberia and offered free passage to any slave who wanted to return there.
How many kids realize that the "Emmancipation Proclaimation" only freed the southern slaves and that there WERE slaves in the north?
How many kids realize that people could sell themselves BACK INTO slavery and often did?

Yup there is a LOT of history that the kids miss.
Sometimes I think they can learn more watching the History channel more than they can sitting in a classroom all year.
Worse part is when I was telling my 18yr old (the one I just praised a few posts back) about the Civil War stat...he said he didn't remember the dates of the war either=--=you would not believe his ACT scores and he can't recall the dates? What is going on here?

I hoping he's just pulling my leg