8th grade civics test......from 1954

[musclehead]

I'd fail  :'(  the schools expected more from their students back then....

http://www.rense.com/general75/pass.htm

[The Anvil]

I'd fail  :'(  the schools expected more from their students back then....

http://www.rense.com/general75/pass.htm

How old are you? I'm 39 and I recall being required to learn that stuff. I just don't remember it now.

I'd fail too BTW.

[sugerbear]

remember having to memorize the preamble, that's about all i remember from that long ago

[Bonzo]

That was pretty tough! I wonder how our politicians would do?

[bigvalkriefan]

I'm 51 and I never had to learn who held what office. I like it, can we go back?

[musclehead]

I'm 51 and I never had to learn who held what office. I like it, can we go back?

can we? I wonder.....  I'm 49 I remember having to memorize the presidents and vice presidents one year....

[Chrisj CMA]

Thats too much writing to grade.  Im serious, a couple years ago my wifes son was doing his 12th grade homework....essay questions the answer had to fit in a small one line block....maybe 6 words.  I asked him how in the world they called that an essay question.  He said the teacher doesnt have tome to read any more than that she has so many students to grade

[sailed2japan]

That's one of the many problems with the public education system. My sister is a teacher and she had around 30 kids per class and 6 classes a day. That's a boat load of school work to go over!

[The Anvil]

You now, the flipside to this is that my 3rd grade daughter (going into 4th next year) is already doing rudimentary algebra and is learning science material that I didn't see until Jr. High.

[RP#62]

I was in school in the 50's and remember having to learn all that stuff.  We used to have to name all the presidents in order.  Then the 60's happened and blew it all away.   Actually, I still know everything, I just can't remember it all at once.
-RP

[9Ball]

that test was taken 2 days before I was born.....amazing bit of knowledge.

[Walküre]

I would seriously propose that it was an open-book test. Although a bit younger (12 years) than that test time period, I recall MANY open-book tests, equivalent to that, but NONE like that, that weren't open-book. Just my opinion, as well as my belief, until proven different.

R

[bscrive]

Up here in Canada I had to learn all of our prime ministers, major lakes and rivers when I was in public school.  I am 43 and most of the kids today could not tell you where the St. Lawrence seaway is.  But they can tell you how to hook up the Xbox no problem.

[musclehead]

You now, the flipside to this is that my 3rd grade daughter (going into 4th next year) is already doing rudimentary algebra and is learning science material that I didn't see until Jr. High.

FCOL! (for crying out loud) in the third grade I didn't even know how to tell time! what state do you live in? sounds like they are on the right track..

[Valker]

Sorry, rudimentary algebra starts in Kindergarten or first grade. Remember 3+[]=7 ? Filling in that box is algebra. Algebra teachers tend to be of one personality type because that particular type of personality really likes the concrete way math seems to work. There are MANY other ways to teach Algebra that most of the rest of us can understand.
If kids today are learning stuff we (I'm 57) learned much later, why do they perform so poorly? This is the end of my 33rd year in the classroom. My thought is they try to teach too much of the wrong stuff too early, too rigidly, and with too much high pressure.

[The Anvil]

Sorry, rudimentary algebra starts in Kindergarten or first grade. Remember 3+[]=7 ? Filling in that box is algebra.

Yes I understand the concept of x factors. My point was that they're doing it at a much earlier age than I did. Of course I went to school in a really crap district but that's beside the point.

[NITRO]

Keep in mind that all of this info could be googled in two seconds, even the same info from 1954 could be found easily with a smart phone. Rote memorization is pointless when the info is so easily accessible. Even before technology brought us all of this information, what would be the point of learning many of the test questions? Have any of you ever needed to know them? Apparently not since nobody (including me) could pass the test.

[Walküre]

I grew up in Hawaii, a Navy brat, and went to a school that was predominately kids of sailors, as we had two Naval Housing complexes right by the school. And back then, quite often by the time someone in the Navy had 6 or 7 year old kids, they were probably career-bound. I have to make an educated guess here, but I DO feel that the ease that us kids could be "tracked" through our dads, made us the perfect guinea pigs.

I remember that in 3rd through 5th grade, we had serious math textbooks, that were paperback, very "disposable". They were called "SMSG", or School Mathematics Study Group. It's been a long time, but I think they came out of Yale, if I recall. It was SOME well-known University, that developed them. The entire concept was very advanced, and I remember it was the first time I was "challenged" in school. Up until then, school was pretty easy for me.

Left Hawaii when I was in the 6th grade, and suddenly, in So. Cal. I was WAY ahead of my class. It didn't catch up to me, until Advanced Math in the 8th grade, when I had the same exact SMSG book, that I had in the 3rd or 4th grade. I have to conclude that they decided that it was too advanced for 4th grade, and was actually made into an 8th grade ADVANCED math book!

NOTE: Google is my friend, google is my friend, google is my friend....
I googled SMSG, and came up with some neat info. I wasn't TOO far off, but here's some more advanced reading. I couldn't find why I had the same book in 4th and 8th grades, but I still think my conclusions could be very accurate:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_Mathematics_Study_Group

http://www.lib.utexas.edu/taro/utcah/00284/00284-P.html

this one is good:

http://www.mnstate.edu/peil/geometry/c2euclidnoneuclid/smsg.htm

and this quote from the next link:

Almost half the nation's high school teachers of mathematics attended at least one such Institute during the 12 year life of SMSG; but an equivalent seeding was impossible for elementary school teachers, who outnumbered the high school math teachers ten to one.  While there were some Institutes for elementary school teachers, these were mainly for experimentation.  The SMSG books themselves achieved unexpectedly wide circulation, and were indeed, as Begle had urged, enthusiastically if often ignorantly imitated, even (or especially) at the more elementary levels.  And the research literature produced in the colleges of education, and the journals of classroom practice written and read by teachers, were for the entire decade of the sixties dominated by obeisance to the SMSG program.

http://www.math.rochester.edu/people/faculty/rarm/smsg.html

Ahh, the memories! thanks!!