Elementary school, grades, tests, and a meme for good measure

[gerisullivan]

Back when I was in elementary school, we were graded on "citizenship" as well as the usual subjects of math, English, geography, and such. A good citizenship grade didn't mean you knew anything more about U.S. citizenship than a bad grade did. It was really just a reflection of how easy it was for the teacher to deal with you, how cooperative you were, and how well you adapted to being in school. There were no tests, quizzes, or worksheets that measured your citizenship knowledge; your grade was whatever the teacher's gut suggested it should be. It always seemed like a dumb, unimportant, arbitrary grade to me.

Fast forward 45 years, and we have memes and quizzes to answer the question those grade school report cards never did. Tonight I found my way to this one via dave_gallaher's posts from last November:

You Passed the US Citizenship Test

Congratulations - you got 10 out of 10 correct!

Could You Pass the US Citizenship Test?

I'm pleased, and surprised. I guessed on a couple, and figured I'd missed at least one of them. Sure, they're very basic, but the devil's in the details, don'cha know?

Comments

[redbird]

Ten out of ten, and I was thinking "that's easy"--but my degree is in history, and I grew up in one of the original 13 states, the one that Vermont used to be part of. I'm sure my mother and grandparents were asked more questions, and I doubt things have been made significantly easier since the 1940s (which is when my mother and her family became citizens).

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

New York, New Hampshire, and (believe it or not) Connecticut all laid claim to the land of Vermont before it became a state. (Connecticut also laid claim to part of what is now Ohio: considering that Connecticut also gave us the Bush family and Joe Lieberman, there may be something in the water there.) This is one of the reasons Congress decided to cut the knot and make it a new state. Probably the students of all three are taught that Vermont used to be part of their state.

[redbird]

Interesting. (I seem to recall that the California grade school texts and workbooks I was working on last year also said it had been part of New York, but that proves little.)