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]

What year is year 10? I'm a little behind the times.

[miss-soap.livejournal.com]

Year 10 is 15 year olds, however I wrote '10 years ago', meaning in 1999. :)

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

So you did! Plainly I don't read enough in my spare time :)

I came across a study some time ago (which I have subsequently been unable to find again), which indicated that the single biggest indicator of academic success in later life was the number of books in a household during childhood.

[miss-soap.livejournal.com]

I'd be interested in reading that; there has to be a correlation of some kind, I'd imagine.

Whilst I didn't have too many books of my own (and my parents weren't big readers) I maxed out my library ticket on a weekly basis, with huge encouragement from my folks.

Books are still the only item I never, ever feel bad about spaffing money on. :)

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

i was trying to find it a few weeks ago whilst bickering about education with someone, but simply couldn't.

I do remember that the study resulted in one of the school boards in the US (Tennessee or some such place) instituting a programme to send a book a month to every household with children under 12, in the hope that it would improve standards.

[miss-soap.livejournal.com]

Have you read 'Quirkology'? There's an interesting section in it which looks at children from low-income/education backgrounds who are adopted into high-income/education/high book count families, but still fail. Nurture/nature argument. Makes for interesting reading.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

I haven't, but this doesn't surprise me. In return, I'll recommend Stuart Sutherland's "Irrationality", part of which looks into why children of high-acheiving parents tend not to have the same level of acheivement. It's all due to things reverting to the mean, apparently.

[miss-soap.livejournal.com]

Does it then, conversely, posit that children of low-achieving parents can achieve highly themselves?

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

That would certainly be a sensible conclusion to reach, although it doesn't say so directly. I'm sure there are plenty of real-world examples of that sort of thing happening.

[miss-soap.livejournal.com]

I'm thinking specifically about the hang-wringing you see about the place over 'intelligent' people not breeding...

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

I think that has always happened - look at Isaac Newton, died a virgin but no slouch intellectually. Smart people tend to have fewer kids as a rule, but that's what sexual reproduction is for - to throw up mutations which produce the next generation of geniusses, wherever they come from.

[twicedead.livejournal.com]

The book with the study was Freakonomics. It then went on to show that number of books probably was an indicator rather than the reason, and was an indicator that the parents valued reading, learning and knowledge.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

I fully accept that it's an indicator, not a cause, but it's a powerful indicator and indicates a good step which could be taken.

[twicedead.livejournal.com]

But just putting books into the houses which don't have them will not have any useful effect, it wouldn't actually make the parents value learning.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Actually, I'd be willing to make a small bet that in some cases it would.

[miss-soap.livejournal.com]

Aha, I am conflating Freakonomics and Quirkology - I have read both, which is why the study sounded familiar.