A New Semester

The new semester began this week. What do people do, normal people in normal jobs? How do they cope without the constant renewal of the semester system? Every few months my world is made fresh--new schedule, new faces, new problems, new topics, new hopes and ambitions. Of course, a few months later, those hopes lie wrecked, those ambitions unrealized. But then I get to try again, and delude myself again, and I fall for it every time.

Anyway, a new semester has dawned and a colleague of mine greeted it by giving a cultural literacy quiz to the students in his introductory American history survey. About 120 students, mostly but not entirely sophomores, from all majors. As expected, they know nothing about the past. I get that (I've been a history buff since before I knew the word "history"--truly, since before kindergarten--but I get that I'm weird). So a rocking 0% identified Woodrow Wilson correctly and even here in the Deep South, only 22% correctly identified William Tecumseh Sherman (with “LSU president” counted as a complete and correct answer; what I loved was that several students thought he invented the Sherman tank). No surprises there. And really, even if they never actually learn who Wilson and Sherman were, life will go on, the social order will not be compromised, they'll live valuable and productive lives.

But then, bizarrely, 91% knew Neil Armstrong walked on the moon. Huh? Why do they know that? When  (sob!) only 4% recognize a photo of George Harrison (with a guitar, mind you) and only 3% know who Orson Welles was. So much for their popular culture expertise. And of course, when you venture into the realm of the political, the results are mind-bogglingly horrifying: just think, of these eligible voters, 10% identified Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 19% knew Donald Rumsfeld (maybe that one's a good thing), and 0%-ZERO-nada-none of 'em knew that the city of Karachi is in Pakistan, that rather unstable nation-state that just may determine much of our future.

Still, lest we despair about the future of our country, take comfort in these stats:

• 99% did not recognize a photo of Jon Huntsman (oh,come on, you remember him? running for the Republican presidential nomination til just a few days ago? really rich guy? oh right, they're all really rich. . . so google him).
• 45% knew Mr. Clean, the commercial cartoon character for cleaning products.

So, at least they won't be voting for Huntsman and they'll be shiny and germ-free.