
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, April 11, 1990                   TAG: 9004110476
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

CIVICS LESSON/ CLASSROOMS: WINDOWS ON THE WORLD

TESTERS keep plumbing new depths of ignorance in American pupils and students, from elementary to college levels. Johnny and Jane can't read at their grade level, write a grammatical sentence or do simple math. They may have heard of Nicaragua but can only make a stab at finding it, or most other foreign countries, on a map.

No surprise, then, that the latest round of tests in the National Assessment of Educational Progress shows woeful gaps in understanding of U.S. history and civics. About 16,000 young people in grades 4, 8 and 12 took the 1988 tests, part of the congressionally mandated National Assessment of Educational Progress. The results showed a grasp of basic facts but a limited ability to interpret events or to comprehend how government works.

Government's workings also leave many adults dumbstruck. But more of us know how it is structured and how it was intended to function. Ninety-four percent of the high-school students knew that Ronald Reagan was president then; only 19 percent could write extended descriptions of what a president's responsibilities are. The testing was done during the 1988 primaries, but only 39 percent of seniors knew that the major parties name their presidential candidates at national conventions.

Drop down to the fourth grade. Fifty-six percent of these pupils could name Christopher Columbus' ships; only 36 percent knew why he took the trip that led him to the New World. More than 80 percent of eighth-graders knew that Abraham Lincoln was assassinated; only 25 percent knew that his Civil War goal was to preserve the Union. Do you recognize the words "When in the course of human events . . . "? Two-thirds of the eighth-graders and 62 percent of seniors couldn't place them.

What most young people did know about history and civics often consisted of snippets of information that they couldn't fit together into meaningful patterns. Christopher T. Cross, assistant U.S. secretary of education in charge of research, said: "Youngsters who stand less than a year away from the voting booth have, as a group, a tenuous grasp of institutions and ideals that make freedom possible." As it happens, most voting-age young people don't bother to vote, a dubious sort of consolation.

Schools' tasks are complicated nowadays by any number of factors, but social studies has always been a subject that young people viewed as dust-dry and burdensome. Not until they assume adult roles and responsibilities do most of them take such things seriously. Sometimes not then: The failings of government confound and disgust many grown-ups, and citizenship is an obligation that does not weigh heavily on everyone.

Teachers can and should demand more of their students. But learning any subject is usually easier and more appealing if it is made entertaining. Today's students have an unparalleled opportunity to see democracy's seeds sprouting elsewhere in the world, to understand how fragile is the plant and how much attention and care it requires to thrive. The dramas unfolding in Latin America and Eastern Europe can teach them more than any textbook or film how precious is the self-rule we have and what they must do to preserve it.

by CNB