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Is your school a Fact Free Zone? Take The Quizz and find out!

Sep 5th 2006

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by: BruceDPrice
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Many schools don’t bother teaching basic facts and figures. Result: some high school graduates don’t know even the simplest stuff. Which countries border the USA? The deepest spot in the ocean is how deep, 3 miles, 7 miles or 11 miles? How many days from one full moon to the next?

Some schools prefer to stress feelings and opinions. Teachers say: “Students don’t need to memorize anything. They can look it up!” A slogan which is carte blanche for teaching less and less.

I'd like to suggest a different slogan: “Facts are fun!” For pleasure and for profit, students need to know fundamental information about the world they live in.

One of the oddest tenets of modern educational theory is that children can engage in “critical thinking” without knowing any facts to think about. Sort of like playing tennis without a ball, swimming without water, or conducting chemistry experiments without chemicals. These activities are properly called make-believe. Common sense says that students should first learn facts, then learn to analyze those facts.

Maybe there was a long-ago time when children had to memorize too much. But anyone who has watched Jay Leno go “Jaywalking” knows that many adults today, even ones who attended college, are remarkably unacquainted with even rudimentary knowledge. One week he asked this question: “What body of water lies to the west of California?" Remember, the show is shot in California. But he found people who did not know! It’s clearly time to recover lost ground.

I've had facts on my mind for years now, ever since I saw my first installment of Jaywalking. Additionally, we see lots of studies and surveys in the newspapers, all indicating that Americans can hardly find their own state on a map. Typically they don't know where Iraq and Vietnam are. They also don't know the simplest kind of information. Here are some more examples of common knowledge that just isn't all that common: Roughly how much of the Earth is covered by water? The tallest mountain on this planet is what? What countries make up Scandinavia? How many quarts in a gallon?

These questions, with few exceptions, do not rise to the level of Trivial Pursuits. Kids should be learning most of this information in elementary school. If students in high school can’t answer this type of question, they are surely attending classes in what I call a "fact free zone."

Here’s a not-so-easy question that our society needs to ponder: when does 12,000 equal 0? From first grade to high school graduation, children receive about 12,000 hours of education (figuring 30+ hours of schooling per week and 30+ weeks per year). It might seem as if children could learn a great deal in all that time. Often they don’t. All too often 12,000 equals something frighteningly close to 0. Perhaps we need more students saying, “I’m mad as hell and I won’t take it anymore. Teach me something! Make me learn!”

In an effort to dramatize the problem, I've been working on a list of 100 easy questions. I call this list The Quizz. It includes questions such as these: The Eiffel Tower can be found where? The pole vault record is approximately 15’, 20’ or 25’? The most famous canal in the Western Hemisphere is where? How many times zones are in the USA?

It's a fast, easy, fun exam, for children or adults. The instructions suggest that high school graduates should know all the answers. Students who don't score at least 80 correct answers might want to consider suing their schools. For those schools have surely been guilty of malpractice! Well, let me be frank: I am trying to stir up a little controversy and debate. If you agree with me that children need facts, please check out The Quizz.

To view the full 100 questions, see Essay #20 on Improve-Education.org.

(This site recently named Jay Leno "The Educator of the Year for 2008." This award makes the same point as The Quizz--our schools are turning out too many ignorant people. Really, I see now that our educators have waged a war against reading, against math, and against knowledge. See "30: The War Against Reading.")

About the Author

Bruce Deitrick Price is a novelist, artist, poet and education activist. His main site is Improve-Education.org. Topics include robots, Tao, phonics, metalinguistics, Latin, creativity, and much more--a total of 34 original and provocative essays.