Astounding Ignorance

[mrs_overall]

Last night at the quiz, my regular team mates were absent (they had gone to a Gay Rights meeting) so I formed a team with 3 blokes in their 20's. The depth of their ignorance was staggering. A small selection of things they had never heard of includes:
Donald Campbell & Bluebird, The Crimean War, The Boer War, Martina Navratilova, Bobby Moore (they also had no idea we won the 1966 World Cup), Wallis Simpson & Edward VIII, The tv programmes Allo Allo and Porridge, The Magna Carta, the Spinning Jenny, Morse Code, Emily Bronte, Chippendale furniture.....the list goes on.
They gamely had a stab at most questions:
Q Which US president died in 1945? - their answer was Ronald Reagan
Q Leningrad is now known as what? -their answer was Moscow

I ended up doing the quiz single handed and we came a respectable 3rd.
What on earth has happened to education in the days since I left school?

[jim360]

Nothing. You just got three dopes.

[ummmm]

You can be taught something but that doesn't mean you retain the information.

[jno]

depends, how would you have done if the questions had been about videogames, rap music or computer coding?

I'm kind of heartened to hear that young people don't know about the 1966 world cup; it's been nearly 50 years and perhaps the English should learn to let go. (Do you know what year England won the world T20 cup in cricket?)

[tonyav]

LOL, you certainly drew the short straw there, mrs overeducated. Ya got three bone heads.

[corylus]

They made you look good thought didn't they?

[mrs_overall]

The thing is, they are not dopes. One of them in particular is highly paid and works in computers. One of the others is a shop manager and the third bloke is in banking.

[-Talbot-]

it's been nearly 50 years and perhaps the English should learn to let go.

Why?

[jim360]

So in that case why are you questioning their -- and, by extension, all other young people's -- education? Trivia is not education.

[tonyav]

Gawd help us. they sound like their qualified to be politicians !.

[Svejk]

Expect they've got 40 A* grade A levels between them. Young people are astoundingly ignorant nowadays, although you're not supposed to mention it.

[jim360]

As I young person, I'm too ignorant to know whether or not to be offended by that.

[mrs_overall]

jim, do you think knowing some of the history of this country classes as trivia?

[jim360]

Yes.

[mrs_overall]

I rest my case

[1ozzy]

Q: "What on earth has happened to education in the days since I left school?"

A: It's moved along.

[jim360]

A wonderfully-constructed argument, MrsO.

But just because I think of our history as trivia doesn't mean I don't think it's important. It's just evidently not necessary to succeed in life. As you have pointed out, your three quiz colleagues, however useless, are also fairly successful with good salaries, etc.. I don't see that not knowing that Leningrad became St. Petersburg makes the slightest difference to their career prospects.

And no doubt they're one-up on you in other areas as well. It's just that pub quizzes tend to require a particular type of knowledge that not everyone has or is particularly interested in. I don't think that matters, and I don't think it makes anyone ignorant. It is frustrating when in a quiz, to be sure. But that's hardly the best yardstick of intelligence.

[Svejk]

Do you know what ignorant means, jim?

[ummmm]

From your list I didn't know who Donald Campbell was - It was his name I didn't remember, not his achievement. Didn't know what a Spinning Jenny was either, why would I?

People have different skill sets. Not knowing stuff doesn't make people ignorant.

[jim360]

I cannot claim to be cognisant of such byzantine verbiage.

[Svejk]

///Not knowing stuff doesn't make people ignorant.///

God help us. ;D