Despotic tyranny ruined my life

[davywavy]

I don't know if you caught this one; A-level Modern History students complaining that their final exam was 'too hard' because it contained the question “How far do you agree that Hitler’s role 1933-45 was one of despotic tyranny?”.
Their complaint isn't about it being a badly worded question despite 'despot' and 'tyrant' being somewhat tautologous, but because they actually didn't know what despot or tyrant actually meant. A facebook group to protest about the question ("Despotic tyranny ruined my life") has over 1,600 members which, when you consider that 6,000 people took the exam, suggests that a quarter or more of 18 year old history students - people with a self-declared interest in the subject, who might want to study history at university and then get a job presenting Time Team - have a vocabulary which didn't include what I would consider fairly basic governmental terms for pretty much the entirety of recorded human history.

I can see them now; the massed ranks of students in the exam hall, pens a-quiver and eager of neuron to display their hard-gained knowledge. Then, the words "Turn your papers over now". A rustling fills the room followed by...silence. There, spitefully inserted into an A-Level history question about Hitler, the word 'Despot'. Their formerly gleaming eyes dull into glazed incomprehension. As one, their mouths fall open like so many fish and thin trickles of drool begin to collect in their laps. Once-pristine knuckles sprout thick hair and slip to rest upon the ground.

I'm hardly the sharpest tool in the box (my academic record speaks for itself in its unremitting mediocrity) but if I hadn't known what a Despot was when I was 18, I wouldn't have joined groups to complain about it; I'd've kept it damn quiet. I'd've been embarrassed. Perhaps I'd've thought that this gap in my knowledge was at least in part my own responsibility. I didn't even study History to that level, and I think there was little chance of my being asked about the despotic tyranny of Hydrogen over the periodic table in my Chemistry final.

I know some of you lot out there are teachers - what the devil? Can you shed any light on this for me?

Updated from cavalorn: Nice to see groups appearing expressing a contrary position.

Comments

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Comprehensive Education and a target driven (rather than education driven) schools system, would be my guess.

[patchworkkid.livejournal.com]

Beeengo.

Two of my friends work in education (in Australia, but we're getting similar problems here) and both make no bones about the state of the sausage factory. Western education is a Victorian-era model designed to prepare children to work in factories, hence the lining up, the bells, and the emphasis on conformity. Over the years the scope of what's being taught has narrowed quite a bit, and couple that with a culture of It's All About You and immediate satisfaction of every desire and, frankly, a lot of practical experience and education is being missed. Libraries worth for each person. People like Ken Robinson posit alternatives which are worth hearing - alternatives designed for the 21st century rather than the 19th, but I think the damage has been done. At least as far as this generation is concerned. Christ only knows what kind of world we'll be spending our dotage in.

[patchworkkid.livejournal.com]

RE the factory model - it's also the reason for the deathgrip on reading, writing and arithmetic while things like the arts or the ability to think laterally and independently - to formulate one's own ideas - are all but ignored.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

I'd argue that reading, writing and arithmetic are essential prereqiusites to being able to formulate one's own ideas, as they're necessary keys to the door.
Certainly I was taught to read, write and writhe and I used those skills as tools rather than ends.

[patchworkkid.livejournal.com]

Absolutely. So was I. But the point I'm making is the standarisation of very practical education across the board, to the exclusion of *other* fields of endeavour, results in a society that's a bit like a third-generation photocopy of itself.

Like you I got a lot of my learning from the books I read and games I played. Most kids didn't. And the people here saying 'So did I' are here, largely, by dint of the fact that they have that learning in common with you and hence can relate to your voice and experience and have the means and interest to get here. Most people - the bulk of the populace that essentially forms the countenance of society - don't. And today's poor students make tomorrow's poor teachers, who pass their own poor standards onto kids who are even poorer in their own right.

It's a wasting disease. A good example in a trend that started a few years ago where - Stateside and in a few schools here - it was deemed harmful to fail a student, so an alternative grading scheme was developed whereby no kid ever actually failed. I havent't read anything about it in a few years, so I'm hoping that one got knocked on the head.