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Fictitious Reviews‘Facts and Dates’ takes off on college campuses Ann Arbor, MI ‘Facts and Dates’ is the latest college craze. It’s not a dance or rock band, but a no-nonsense college course about, yes, facts and dates. The course arose out of some simple facts about high school seniors: 50% of them can’t pick out their home state on a map of the U.S., 70% don’t know who their state governor is, and 66% don’t know the dates of the U.S. Civil War.
Appalled at the “abysmal ignorance” of American high
schoolers in geography and history, Cleveland’s Joramy
Institute created a ‘Facts and Dates’ course for college
students. The course comes complete with a paperback
book titled, appropriately enough, Facts and Dates You
Should Know. It lists 2000 important facts and dates, and an on-line
program with the same information. The Joramy Institute
The Joramy Institute’s founder and president, Cordell
Kinglsey, says his goal is to make the ‘facts and dates’
course a requirement for graduation in all liberal arts
colleges. “There is no excuse,” he says, “for our students
to graduate college ignorant about who fought in World
War II, who built the atom bomb, what ocean Hawaii is in,
or who is buried in Grant’s Tomb.” Many college professors seem to scoff at Kinglsey’s
emphasis on facts and dates. “Of course facts and dates
are important,” says Northwestern University Professor
Harold Tweeby, “but that’s not what students come to
college to learn. They come to learn about ideas,
philosophy, social change.” To which Kinglsey replies:
“People like Professor Tweeby are so misguided, so
isolated in their ivory tower, they think knowledge is only some free floating,
subjective, ‘how-do-you-feel-about-this-write-me-an-essay’ proposition.
“It is obscene - yes, that’s the right word, obscene,”
Kinglsey says, “for students to get through a course, say, on
American History, and not know that Italy was our enemy
in World War II. Yet that’s the case for 62% of high
school seniors. It’s a failure of our education establishment
for any student to graduate high school and think West Virginia is the western region
of Virginia (47%) or that New Mexico is a foreign country
(38%). And these ignorances are carried over to college.
How many high school graduates know who Neville
Chamberlain was, or the role he played in Munich? You
think that’s not important for today’s world?”
The 2000 facts and dates in the book of that name are
divided into 3 main areas: History, Geography,
Arts and Science. The college quiz, which students take
by computer (after registering and paying a course fee),
includes 100 multiple-choice questions taken directly from
this list; 80 correct answers is a
passing grade. The Joramy Institute monitors the quiz and
changes it four times a year. It's also important to know that a single fact -
say, that Sherman marched his army through Georgia in the fall of 1864 - can
be asked numerous ways. (Who marched through Georgia? In what state did Sherman's famous
march take place? When was the march?)
In this way the 2000 items can generate several thousand different questions.
Students may take the test at any time once they register for the course. However, anyone
not passing must wait three months before taking it again,
at which time the questions are different (but still from the
same 2000 items in the book).
“The real goal,” Kinglsey says, “is that once students
know what century the Civil War took place, or who
Chamberlain was, they will be more attuned to the world
around them, and more receptive to new information.
There are obviously more than 2000 important facts and
dates, and ideas are important. But we must inculcate a
framework of knowledge that students can build on.” Howard McGraw, Dean of Arts and Sciences at
University of Wisconsin, Madison, agrees. “This is a great
idea,” he says, “one of those ‘whose time has come.’ The
course requires no extra faculty, the students take it for
extra credit, and the information is important.” Wisconsin
is not ready to make it mandatory for college freshman,
but is considering such a move.
For a sample list of The Joramy Institute’s Facts and Dates, see below. History The French Revolution began in 1789. The King at the
time, Louis XVI, and his wife Marie Antoinette, were
executed on the guillotine in 1793. The Wright Brothers, from Dayton, Ohio, carried out their
first manned plane flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina in
1903. While there may have been isolated flights by
others before 1903, the Wright Brothers are credited with
inventing the airplane. World War II began September 1, 1939, when German
troops invaded Poland. The type of invasion – massive,
quick movement of armored divisions across the border –
became known as ‘blitzkreig’. Two days later, September
3, France and Britain declared war on Germany. Geography
The largest U.S. state in land area is Alaska, land area 656,425 miles. Its capitol is Juneau. The Mississippi River flows from Northern Minnesota to
Southern Louisiana, a distance of 2,552 miles; the river
begins 1,475 feet above sea level. The oldest U.S. city still in existence is St. Augustine,
Florida, founded September 1565. Arts and Sciences Mark Twain lived from 1835 to 1910, and is best known
for the novel “Huckleberry Finn.” His real name was
Samuel Clemens. My Fair Lady, one of the longest running broadway
musicals (1956 to 1962), was based on Pygmalion, a 1912
novel by George Bernard Shaw. It was also made into a
very successful movie (1964). Beethoven, considered one of the greatest classical music
composers, lived from 1770-1827. He is best known for
9 symphonies (including the most famous, #3, the
‘Eroica’), 5 piano concertos (most famous #5, the
‘Emperor’) and numerous chamber works. |