Every so often, I'll hear a report from some news source stating a very basic fact that most American's probably don't know. The most recent example is that most American's can't name the 3 branches of government. To test this claim, I'll go around asking people I know if they can answer this question. A lot of them can't respond with executive, judicial, and legislative.
To take this a step further, I'll think of other really basic common knowledge questions and see if my friends can answer it. Unfortunately, I run into people who do not know how large of a number a million, billion, and trillion are. Most of my friends can't correctly name the first five United States presidents (to be fair, I couldn't remember past the first three). Recently, I was amazed that I ran into people who could not name all eight planets of the solar system.
The last question hit me hard. The only confusion regarding that question could reasonable come from the fact that Pluto is no longer considered a planet since 2006. The planets of the solar system is something that every kid learns by the age of nine. It is such common knowledge, it baffles me that people would forget Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune.
The fact that a great amount of Americans don't know these basic bits of knowledge would imply that the average American is really stupid but that is much too easy of a conclusion to jump to. Instead, it is more reasonable to come to the conclusion that American's forget these facts because they aren't at all relevant to the average American's life. Knowing that Pluto is no longer considered a planet won't help the average American make or save any money. Being able to list the first 10 presidents most likely won't improve your marriage or love life. Being able to list the three branches of government won't help a woman lose 10 pounds.
The average American knows things like the price of a gallon of gas, where to go to get a tire changed, how to interact with other people etc.
It kind of makes me wonder why elementary schools teach kinds all this information that they will eventually forget or never need to learn. I've come up with two conclusions.
The first being that government schools are just a form of subsidized childcare which will allow Americans to go out and work more hours without having to worry about taking care of their children. Kids get force fed education just so that parents think they are getting a good value from their tax dollars.
The second conclusion is that the education system knows that only a small percentage of students will become productive and eventually end up supporting all the unproductive citizens of society. 30% to 50% of kids in the system will major in STEM or enter the trades to help build society while the rest of the kids get stuck in low paying jobs or live off of welfare.
Just like a multi level marketing company, it is close to impossible to figure out which recruits will be the superstar sellers. In order to find that superstar, you have to recruit as many people as possible, make them jump through countless hoops, and see which ones come out a success. Since the federal government forces all children to go through the education system, the government has the greatest chance of mining for the high potential workers.
It is for this reason that kids get exposed to a wide variety of topics and more than 90% of it will be a complete waste of time. The kid who eventually becomes a chemical engineer probably doesn't know what he will become at the age of 12. He will have to be subjected to topics such as history or journalism along his way.
Since elementary schools don't do a very good job inspiring children to become great, and that these kids will eventually just forget 90% of what they learn anyway, why not just turn these elementary schools into summer camps and let real school start when the kids go to middle school.
Also in middle school and high school, I guess they should teach more practical things like how to change a tire, how to prepare basic income taxes, how to use excel spreadsheets, or how to do proper customer service. I'd figure these skills would be more applicable to the average man's life then writing a 5 page essay about the book Great Expectations.
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