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]

A quick dekko at compariative tax rates horrifies me; the tax take in notoriously tax-happy Sweden appears to be only about 5% more of GDP than it is in this country thanks to various schemes like higher business rates and council taxes in this country to hide true costs. Indeed, if I lived in either Sweden or Denmark it appears I'd be paying less total tax for a better service. Do I have a problem with paying less for better results? Do I heckers, like.

Unfortunately, the amount of money put into a system is no guarantor of effectiveness. The system itself appears to be at fault, not the spend on it. That's one thing that winds me up pretty effectively; the claim that public services will improve as an automatic effect of raising taxes. I'd've hoped the last decade would have put paid to that particular calumny, but it still lingers in some places.

[zenicurean.livejournal.com]

A couple years back The Economist suggested that getting better teachers (http://xinkaishi.typepad.com/a_new_start/2007/10/economist-educa.html) might help quite a bit.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Nonsense! Everyone knows that the only solution to any problem is higher taxes.