Older and More Ignorant*
April 17, 2008 12:57 PM
I've written before about the "kids are stupid" meme that pops up in the media. Give students a test, report the findings on a particular question, and conclude kids are stupid. Often lost is that, by the same measure, adults are stupid, too.
So, I had to click on Joe Williams' reference to Karin Chenowith's look at high school exit exams. She writes that the exams:
ask questions that high school graduates should be able to answer. Questions about the role of the Supreme Court, the meaning of the First Amendment, the role of sunlight in plant growth, the process of evolution**, the conclusions that can be drawn from a set of data or a piece of literature. This is not rocket science. Nor is there anything that is antithetical to a good education.
Agreed. Recent graduates -- and older graduates -- should know the answers to these questions.
And older people do better on such questions, right? Wrong -- at least in science, according to a report by the National Science Foundation.
Age (years) % of correct answers to scientific
terms and concept questions
18–24 65
25–34 63
35–44 63
45–54 61
55–64 58
65+ 48
Can we expect to see CNN mocking old people because 3 of 7 believe the sun goes around the earth? Probably not. And don't expect young people to be praised because 6 out of 7 know that the earth goes around the sun. Instead let's mock them -- ha! 1 of 7 young people are on the wrong side of the Copernican Revolution.
All this isn't to say we shouldn't be doing more to prepare high school graduates to enter the world of work. It's just that we should act with the knowledge that there is no Golden Age of education during which every 18-year-old graduated from high school and could score 100% on today's high school exit exams.
*My cohort scored a few points behind the 18- to 24-year-olds, so count me among the old and ignorant.
** Young people did nearly twice as well as oldsters on the NSFs evolution question.
