Funny Flashback
I am in a most-of-the-day meeting today, off campus. So, this is the best I can do:
The recent (maybe ongoing is a better word) conflict in Georgia reminds me of a brief conversation I had with another student in a fourth year history seminar, during my undergraduate days. At some point, Joseph Stalin's nationality was raised as it related to a discussion about Hitler's nationality. Hitler was Austrian, not German; Stalin was Georgian, not Russian. It's an interesting thing to ponder, at least for a few moments.
At that point, the woman sitting to the right of me (she was also an upstairs neighbour in my residence) turned to me and quietly said: "Stalin was American?" She hailed from Vancouver, but that is probably not important.
I did wonder how in hell she got into a fourth year seminar. How did she pass all of the prerequisites? Can one really be that ignorant of geography in University? It made me think that there ought to have been entrance exams.
I thought this was very funny, until a colleague informed me that a student recently posed this question at the reference desk: "Who is this Hitler guy?"
4 comments:
Putting to rest the myth that there are no stupid questions.
This reminds me of a recent conversation with someone only a few years (ok, maybe a decade) younger than me who had never heard of Dolly Parton. Not as historically significant, but it made me feel old.
And who is this Hitler guy anyway? ;)
Try watching Leno when he goes out on the street to ask people simple questions about history and current events. Their ignorance is SCARY!
Actually what always gives me a weird feeling and sometimes makes me feel old is when a young person starts talking about something from "history" based on what they learned in a class, but they can't seem to get a grip on the fact that I remember the actual event. It's always so funny because the young person thinks they know soooo much because they listened to one class lecture about something like the Iran hostage crisis or something and it doens't even cross their mind that some of us remember this shit and it's not just textbook stuff to us.
Wow. Part of me is appalled. Then the other part of me is pleased that my own offspring is more clever than a university student, at age six.
He recently told me, "Mom, we need to talk about Hitler and the Nazi's." Then commenced to talk. And talk. With pretty decent accuracy. I have no idea where he's getting this information, but it leads to some pretty interesting conversations.
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