by Michael I. Niman, Art Voice
One of the biggest problems confronting higher
education is the fact that most students entering colleges and
universities lack basic social science skills and knowledge. In a
recent survey of college students in Buffalo, for example, almost half
did not know who George Pataki is. Eighty percent had no idea, correct
or incorrect, as to what communism is. Nearly the same number of
students couldn’t define capitalism. For whatever reason, social
science education in America has collapsed at the high school level.
For a democracy that relies on an informed electorate, such ignorance
is toxic. [read more]