american history quiz....

[riverc0il]

The course I teach starts with U.S. Imperialism and ends with the Obama Administration.

That is great that there is that option. As severine noted, I had the same high school history experience in which the education stopped shortly after World War II. We might have covered up to the 1950s or so at best and rushing to do so. Anything I learned about the VAST amount of important history that followed, I learned on my own. I still consider the 1970s to be the decade of US history I know the least about from a history textbook perspective, excepting the evolution of pop/funk music through that time period.

 

[snowmonster]

100% and I never took a course in American History or civics.

 

[mondeo]

That is great that there is that option. As severine noted, I had the same high school history experience in which the education stopped shortly after World War II. We might have covered up to the 1950s or so at best and rushing to do so. Anything I learned about the VAST amount of important history that followed, I learned on my own. I still consider the 1970s to be the decade of US history I know the least about from a history textbook perspective, excepting the evolution of pop/funk music through that time period.

That's just a failure to stay on schedule, nothing to do with how the curriculum was set. Your teacher should've been fired.

Oh wait, can't do that.

I know at least for NYS while I was going through, history covered from the Colonies up to pretty much current events. You didn't cover that much material, your goose was cooked for the Regents. Up to the teacher to keep the class on schedule.

College is a different story. Professor can pretty much teach whatever they want, how they want. Yeah there's accreditation, but that's more of just making sure there is education going on, not all that specific to what. Any basic history, civics, econ,etc. should be covered in high schools, anyways. College is there to teach skills needed for a career, not to better you overall as a person. College history classes shouldn't cover more than probably 25-50 years for American History, post-revolution. 1776-1828, 1828-1856, 1856-1872, 1872-1912, 1912-1932, 1928-1946, 1946-1975, 1965-2000. That type of interval. Any more and you're not going in depth enough to actually provide benefit to anyone who paid a modicum of attention in history during high school; maybe as a survey class, nothing more.

 

[BeanoNYC]

That is great that there is that option. As severine noted, I had the same high school history experience in which the education stopped shortly after World War II. We might have covered up to the 1950s or so at best and rushing to do so. Anything I learned about the VAST amount of important history that followed, I learned on my own. I still consider the 1970s to be the decade of US history I know the least about from a history textbook perspective, excepting the evolution of pop/funk music through that time period.

To be honest, the textbook covers up to Reagan. We took it upon ourselves to create the curriculum for everything past that. In addition we added a unit called the History of U.S. involvement in the Middle East. We take a step back from the chronological order we usually go by and give a comprehensive overview from the Barbary Wars up until 9/11. We felt it was important for the students to get an academic and objective view of this. 9/11 is still the toughest to teach. Although I can give an eye witness account as someone who was working in Manhattan that day, I have to walk on eggshells when describing the events. One year I had 7 students who lost a parent in the WTC.

Getting back to the current curriculum, I will finalize in the next few weeks what I want them to know about the Obama administration. Obviously the overhaul of Healthcare and reduction of Nuclear arms are at the top of the list.

 

[riverc0il]

Getting back to the current curriculum, I will finalize in the next few weeks what I want them to know about the Obama administration. Obviously the overhaul of Healthcare and reduction of Nuclear arms are at the top of the list.

Can a current event that happened in the past year be taught as history? Doesn't history require some distance to best be objective and put events in perspective and get all the different takes and aspects and information on to the table? Just curious. I do think that is great that students are getting an education right up to the present because I missed out on that.

 

[KevinF]

Such as Question 8 about the Supreme Court in which the correct answers to me read that the President can just appoint justices any time he wants when the Court disagrees with them whereas you need to await a vacancy.

Not true. Nowhere in the Constitution does it state the Supreme Court will have 9 justices. FDR wanted to add 10 more justices to the Supreme Court (so that he would always have a majority), but Congress -- who needs to confirm any Supreme Court appointees -- prevented it.

 

[BeanoNYC]

Can a current event that happened in the past year be taught as history?

I guess this is a question of semantics. Maybe Social Studies would be a better suited term? Either way....these kids are not going to learn about these things in Physics class so I guess my classroom is where the buck stops.

I try to be as objective as possible when teaching current events. I refuse to tell my students my political beliefs or opinions on anything current. I just give an objective overview of the topics and let them argue it in class. Basically I light the fire and take cover from the explosion. I always tell them that they are old enough to come up with their own opinions and I refuse to influence that.

I just registered all my students (185 of them) to vote...exciting stuff for them.

 

[Marc]

Not true. Nowhere in the Constitution does it state the Supreme Court will have 9 justices. FDR wanted to add 10 more justices to the Supreme Court (so that he would always have a majority), but Congress -- who needs to confirm any Supreme Court appointees -- prevented it.

Mm... actually I think Congress sets the size of the court through legislation, which is why FDR tried to change the size by introducing new legislation, not simply by appointing more justices.

 

[Paul]

You answered 29 out of 33 correctly — 87.88 %

 

[jaywbigred]

I was an American Studies and English double major.

"You answered 29 out of 33 correctly — 87.88 %

Average score for this quiz during April: 74.7%

You can take the quiz as often as you like, however, your score will only count once toward the monthly average.

If you have any comments or questions about the quiz, please email americancivicliteracy@isi.org.

You can consult the following table to see how citizens and elected officials scored on each question.

Where to from here?

Answers to Your Missed Questions:

Question #7 - D. Gettysburg Address
Question #10 - C. Religion
Question #12 - B. the Supreme Court struck down most legal restrictions on it in Roe v. Wade
Question #33 - D. tax per person equals government spending per person"

Funny that other than #7, which a lot of people seemed to have missed, the other 3 were all related to my educational background in some way. The problem is the word "person." Not all "persons" are taxpayers. What do they mean by person? Humans? Citizens? To me, the better answer is A), though it should say "for that year," and is still not a great answer unless you added "More likely to be" before the word zero.

#10 - Had that narrowed to 2, had the right answer, 2nd guessed myself.
#12 - poorly worded question in my opinion, I'm almost positive that D is true to some extent, and for B to be the right answer, it relies on a subjective opinion of what the word "most" means. Also, without cheating, I thought there was a possibility that A was true, depending on a reading of the word "most," again.