The school says my 14-year-old is doing great, but she has enormous gaps in basic knowledge that stun me. The teachers tell me not to worry, that this is normal with this generation. Is it? My other kids, now 19 and 22, were never like this.

I live in the U.S., in a community with better-than-average schools and plentiful resources. Yesterday my wife and I had a standard scheduled meeting at the local high school, about the progress of our 14-year-old daughter, that left me a bit worried and unnerved .

Our daughter is kind and well-adjusted and shows real consideration for others. We often hear how pleasant she is to be around (she is!), and that's terrific. She's pretty damn decent at math and a good speller and not a bad writer and I'm proud of her for all of that, and tell her so.

But you know those filmed street interviews where random passersby are asked super simple trivia questions and they have no clue, and you want to tear your hair out with vicarious embarrassment? Yeah. The way things are going, that's going to be her.

There are so many basic things re, for instance, history and geography, that she doesn't know. Examples: At 14, she doesn't know what the capital of our state is, and barely came up with the correct answer when asked to name the capital of the U.S. She has no idea when World War II started or ended, can't begin to tell the differences between capitalism and communism, can't tell the Revolutionary War from the Civil War, hasn't even heard of key figures like Albert Einstein or John F. Kennedy or Bill Gates, etc.

I'm not asking her to describe nuclear fission or solve Fermat's Theorem. I'm talking about everyday stuff that I thought was (or ought to be) part of what halfway educated citizens know. Even at 14.

The teachers say she's doing great, that she's always cooperative and attentive, that she's "in the top half of her class." On one level, that's satisfying to hear, but if the latter part is true, I also find it frightening and depressing.

I knew so much more about the world when I was her age. So did our older daughters, now 19 and 22. (The middle one is even a trivia fiend who can give me a run for money when we watch Jeopardy together.)

According to the teachers, the current generation learns "differently" and finds it harder to focus and retain things. I'm told that it should all turn out fine and that I have no real cause for concern. Don't I? What does that stance say about our education system and our collective future? Am I a jerk, or way off base, for worrying about my daughter and about the low, low expectations that today's society seems to impose on students?

Submitted October 09, 2024 at 07:59AM by One-Recognition-1660 https://ift.tt/RpydKjJ