When you were a kid, what's something or someone you knew about that at your age, seemed like common knowledge among people but with the way this next generation is going in its lack of knowing its head from a hole in the ground, you doubt they would at the same age?


Unfortunately it is not surprising anymore to encounter kids who don't know much of anything and are proud of it. I knew a kid who at age 13 thought George Bush and George Washington were the same person.

Of he and his siblings and friends who are all in their teens, none of them could tell you anything about World War II though when I was 10 I had already learned about the Holocaust and Anne Frank and the Jews being turned into dish detergent and dog food and the 6 million+ body count in the camps and gas chambers.

At 12 I knew about Jack the Ripper and at 13 I read about Lizzie Borden and Loeb and Leopold and the hauntings in Chicago with Resurrection Mary and the supposedly cursed bricks from the garage the St. Valentine's Day Massacre was committed in; but these kids wouldn't know anything about those because they can watch Chucky and Freddy Krueger and that's fine, but even age old ghost stories can't be read because sabes que 'they're too scary, they'll give me nightmares' and anything that's real and half the things that aren't are too boring.

Even as a kid I knew that when we grew up and "finished school", we either went to college or got married (or just worked). Some even joined "the army". Kids grew up to become responsible and not rely on Mom and Dad. And that's still how things were in high school.

Fast-forward several decades, and I've been shocked at the growing number of young adults who have no sense of responsibilities. There is a self-entitlement towards their parents, and no incentive to support themselves. I won't say that this is the norm, but I can think of four friends right off the bat who are dealing with bullshit from their kids.

Bluesmama wrote:

Even as a kid I knew that when we grew up and "finished school", we either went to college or got married (or just worked). Some even joined "the army". Kids grew up to become responsible and not rely on Mom and Dad. And that's still how things were in high school.

Fast-forward several decades, and I've been shocked at the growing number of young adults who have no sense of responsibilities. There is a self-entitlement towards their parents, and no incentive to support themselves. I won't say that this is the norm, but I can think of four friends right off the bat who are dealing with bullshit from their kids.

Too true, too true, at the age of 9 I had my mind made up I was not going to go to college, and waste 4 years more in school? (I spent 5 in before getting my Master's) And from the time I was 9 I thought about what kind of job I was going to get as soon as I was 16, all the different kinds of jobs I could do, etc.

when i was a kid (late 70s early 80s), we were informed of current events and feared the nuclear bomb and the russians. i remember in church we prayed "for the conversion of russia". They were taught to us to be evil for not allowing religion in the USSR. I even remember watching the presidential election between carter/reagan... not that I really understood it, but I knew who was running and who won. I remember we wore bands on our arms for the iran hostages and the marines killed in beirut.

I really dont think that kids in elementary schools are aware of current events.

Something that i was taught in school that they do not teach anymore includes phonics and diagramming sentences. Kids today do not know sentence diagrams, cannot categorize words, and have horrible horrible spelling and grammar skills.

wants2laugh wrote:

when i was a kid (late 70s early 80s), we were informed of current events and feared the nuclear bomb and the russians. i remember in church we prayed "for the conversion of russia". They were taught to us to be evil for not allowing religion in the USSR. I even remember watching the presidential election between carter/reagan... not that I really understood it, but I knew who was running and who won. I remember we wore bands on our arms for the iran hostages and the marines killed in beirut.

I really dont think that kids in elementary schools are aware of current events.

Something that i was taught in school that they do not teach anymore includes phonics and diagramming sentences. Kids today do not know sentence diagrams, cannot categorize words, and have horrible horrible spelling and grammar skills.

This is for sure, because in an attempt to get to the bottom of why high school sophomores can't read on a 4th grade level around here, I found out that they never even bothered teaching them the sounds of the letters when they were in kindergarten. Why the teachers are allowed to be so stupid when even the kids shouldn't be is beyond me, but every day I see a hell of a lot more reasons to be thankful we were homeschooled because we actually learned something there and learned how to work and study instead of this 'you have to have toys to play with while someone reads to you in high school so you don't get bored' crape we have now.