Outlook for Citizenship MBs not good . . .

[fgoodwin]

According to a recent study of civics literacy by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute:

 

* Fewer than half of all Americans can name all three branches of government, a minimal requirement for understanding Americas constitutional system.

 

* Only 24% of college graduates know the First Amendment prohibits establishing an official religion for the United States.

 

* Nearly a third of the respondents failed to name two of America's enemies in World War Two; 22% of college graduates did not answer that question successfully.

 

* 54% of respondents (and only 44% of 18- to 34-year-olds) knew that Congress shares foreign policy power with the President; nearly a quarter (and almost a third of elected officials!) believed Congress shares such power with the United Nations.

 

* Thirty percent of elected officials do not know that life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are the inalienable rights referred to in the Declaration of Independence.

 

* Only 21% of those surveyed know that the phrase government of the people, by the people, for the people comes from Lincolns Gettysburg Address.

 

* Although Congress has voted twice in the last eight years to approve foreign wars, only 53% of those surveyed know that the power to declare war belongs to Congress. Almost 40% incorrectly believe it belongs to the President.

 

* Less than one in five of those surveyed know that the phrase a wall of separation between church and state comes from a letter by Thomas Jefferson. Almost half incorrectly believe it can be found in the Constitution.

 

http://www.isi.org/

[le Voyageur]

About 99 per cent of Americans belive that the Boston Tea party was the start of the Revolutionary War. (the fact is that the seeds for the rebellion were planted on 10 Fed.1763, being the 1763 Treaty of Paris, ending the French and Indian War.)The catalyst for the war, was the War of the Regulation (the Regulator Movement) a North Carolina uprising, lasting from approximately 1764 to 1771, where citizens took up arms against corrupt colonial officials. Lexington and Concord would have to wait till 19 April 1775 for "the shot heard around the world."

 

btw...the first patents for teabags was 1903 (tea in the 18th century was pressed into hard blocks allowing ships to carry more of the product)

 

(This message has been edited by Le Voyageur)

[Kudu]

Here is a more relevant statistic: Maybe one percent (1%) of all BSA millionaires, members of the national advancement committee, and holders of four Wood Badge beads, know or care that Scouting was invented to teach one single aim, Citizenship, through practical, down and dirty, real-world membership in independent backwoods Patrols, and that Scouting was very specifically intended to be the exact opposite of classroom school instruction where all of those "branches of government" facts should be learned.

 

In the place of real Patrols we offer Webelos III Dens for teenagers, and business manager theory that keeps Patrol Leaders out of the woods and tied to the apron strings of Scouting schoolmarms.

 

Therefore it is reasonable to guess that 99% of all Scouting professionals and volunteers are functionally illiterate about the history of Scouting, a statistic about the adult understanding of applied Citizenship that is far more alarming that anything the Intercollegiate Studies Institute uncovered.

 

If we offered real Scouting in the United States the "Outlook for Citizenship MBs" would summarized by a Wood Badge logo of an ax stuck in a wood school desk.

 

Kudu

 

 

[Lisabob]

You'd think that, with stats like those, that there would be a great demand for more high school and college education in social studies, history, geography, economics, political science, etc.

 

Instead, what happens in state after state is that the standards for those subjects tend to get pushed aside - probably by those very legislators, parents, and school board members who think the UN runs our foreign policy and that the government can establish religion. Sigh.

 

On a good note for the BSA, I can say that when I teach American Politics and International Politics at the college level, I can almost always pick out the young men who earned those badges as boy scouts because they already have a firm grounding in those topics - usually far better than their peers who only took a semester of government in high school. They also, typically, have come to appreciate and even enjoy the topics covered in those badges. Hmm. Maybe the implication here is that all H.S. students should be required to earn the BSA citizenship merit badges??

 

 

[evmori]

These stats have been bantered around for decades! I'm not even sure if the data is correct or if these are just used to get a rise out of folks!

[Kudu]

I can almost always pick out the young men who earned those badges as boy scouts because they already have a firm grounding in those topics

 

Try staffing a monkey bridge at a Camporee and see how many Eagle Scouts have a "firm grounding" in how to tie a clove hitch. Not an actual lashing, mind you, but a simple clove hitch.

 

Kudu

 

[Narraticong]

Kudu just never seems to get tired of beating us up over the "outing in Scouting" issue! And for that I am grateful.

 

Let schools teach about tea parties. By learning how to function properly as a patrol, our Scouts will learn how to actually BE GOOD CITIZENS.

 

I really believe if we went back and revisited the ideas of Greenbar Bill, we would do just fine.

[Twocubdad]

In 368 BC a survey by an very early Greek research firm found similar results.

[skeptic]

Or you could simply review all the old "Jaywalking" tapes.

[BrentAllen]

Kudu,

While you know where I stand on Patrol Method and keeping the outing in Scouting, I have to play Devil's Advocate here and ask how learning to tie a clove hitch is better at teaching citizenship than is earning the Citizenship MBs?

 

Personally, I think there is room for both in the program, and both are worthwhile.

 

From the Congressional Report In Support of Act To Incorporate Boy Scouts of America, Feb. 7, 1916:

 

The Scout scheme is based up the methods involved in educating the boy. It is a scheme of placing a boy on honor. In addition to requiring him to live up to a standard or code of laws which insure development of character along proper lines, it requires him to study in order to pass certain tests of qualification. The passing of these various tests is recognized by the award of appropriate badges or medals and insignia.

 

Sounds a little like school there to me. Study? Pass tests?

 

If it makes you happy, just teach the course outdoors. ;^)

[Lisabob]

Ed, my personal experience teaching American Government to college students at three different schools (one of which was quite selective, another of which let in anybody with a pulse, and the third of which falls somewhere in between those two) backs up what that study says. The level of ignorance of very basic facts is really appalling.

 

How can you expect people to exercise their rights or safeguard their liberties from excessive gov't intrusions, or make good electoral choices, when they don't have the slightest idea of what those rights are, why we have them, or what government is actually supposed to do and how it is supposed to work! To maintain a functional and vibrant democracy actually requires quite a lot of a country's citizens.

 

A couple of years ago, I had a student make an argument that we should have some sort of literacy test for voters, particularly minority voters who she felt were less likely to be well informed about politics and history due to the uneven quality of inner city public schooling. She could not understand the extremely hostile reaction that her comments provoked from some of her classmates. Of course she also had no idea that exactly such tests had been used from about the end of the civil war right up to the mid 1960s in many states, with the intent and effect of systematically disenfranchising black voters. A little knowledge of history would have served her well.

 

Skeptic - I've used some of those Jaywalking segments in class from time to time! Students love them, and (beyond the obvious silliness) they recognize the truth in them, too. They have been good conversation starters.

 

 

[SM214]

I would like to see a demographical breakdown of the people who participated in this survey. I learned all of this 30yrs ago in elementary school. And I still remember it, even though half the time I can't remember what I ate for dinner the night before.

Part of the problem is we"ve changed the focus of education from learning to studying to pass the standardized achievement tests all children must take so the schools get their state and federal subsidies. My 15yr old has learned more about WWII from the History Channel than he did in school.

[evmori]

Lisa,

 

A literacy test for voter is not a bad idea. The only downside I see is there would be less people voting because they don't want to take a test just to vote!

 

My point about this data being old is this type of information only seems to surface around election time. We just elected a new President. You never see this data in an off election year. I question the purpose & relevancy.

[Kudu]

BrentAllen writes:

 

I have to play Devil's Advocate here and ask how learning to tie a clove hitch is better at teaching citizenship than is earning the Citizenship MBs?

 

The group dynamics of a boy-led Patrol building a monkey bridge (or otherwise facing the forces of nature as in 1916), do more to build Citizens than book-learning. You must notice that on your canoe trips.

 

Sounds a little like school there to me. Study? Pass tests?

 

Yes that is true, Brent.

 

YMCA "boy work" theory did not allow Patrol Leaders or even "Scout Masters" to test their own Scouts, so they corrupted the term "Court of Honor" (aka PLC) to mean a battery of written and practical exams conducted by adults appointed by the local Council.

 

See:

 

http://inquiry.net/adult/methods/1st/064-Scout_Exams.htm

 

However, on Feb. 7, 1916 there were only three Ranks and all the "study in order to pass certain tests of qualification" was 99% legitimate Scoutcraft.

 

See:

 

http://inquiry.net/advancement/tf-1st_require_1911.htm

 

Kudu

 

[skeptic]

In 1958, I had to pass the California Constitution test to graduate 8th grade. Most of us in scouts used it as the basis for the Nation merit badge at the same time. The test was very intensive, as some on this board may remember.

 

In high school, we had social science and history as separate classes. In social science we studied civics type of things for one, including voting importance, poly sci, geography, and so on. We also spent an entire quarter on income tax preparation in that class in my senior year; we were given raw data with which to prepare a long form then in use. We also studied banking issues and simple budgeting. Four years of history, four of social studies, 4 of math, 4 of P.E. (and you had to actually perform and deal with taking a public shower); 7 periods total every year. Campus was closed, and parents had to have a really valid reason to take you out of school; and when they did, you were not only responsible to catch up, but often were assigned a special report if the reason was some kind of trip. That was back when California was almost the best system in the country of course. It also was before personal responsibility was held in high esteem, and "honor" actually meant something. Ah, the good old days.