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Date Posted: 07:47:08 04/26/07 Thu
Author: SuziWong
Subject: Re: 8th Grade Final Exam in 1895
In reply to: Lynx 's message, "Re: 8th Grade Final Exam in 1895" on 06:42:18 04/26/07 Thu

Like you, lynx, I’m grateful for the ability to memorize and the teachers who required it. I’ve called up some of those facts when needed, saving myself a trip to Google. I can recite the names of the Old Testament books of the Bible in order and can recall the 45 prepositions (maybe there are more now) in alphabetical order--about, above, across, after, along, amid, among, around, as, at, before, behind, below, beneath, beside, besides, between, beyond, during, except, for… (helps me with those rules of punctuation). Right now I can tell you the first 12 presidents of the U.S. because I have picked up a new mnemonic device which will soon fade when I no longer care.

The facts asked for in the 1895 example are facts perhaps any 8th grader then would have known, but would they have remembered them in 1925? The brain retains information that is useful. In continue to require students to memorize the multiplication facts through 9x9.

On the other hand, if I were the CEO of Pfizer, Inc., I’d rather hire an employee who understood the scientific method, could conduct controlled research, support findings with evidence, and communicate with colleagues than someone who could name all the drugs patented by Pfizer since 1849.

The part of the 1895 exam I liked best was where one is asked to write an essay demonstrating a command of English grammar. Being able to communicate in speech and writing is an essential skill now as then. Still, the correctness of the grammar is relative to the age in which one is writing. (See the King James Version of the Bible.)

So maybe we should see what kind of exams today’s 8th graders are being asked to pass. I wonder if they might be more challenging than the one from 1895. I know they’d be more performance based.

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