Kids these days

... that and "Back in my day, we'd to..." are pretty much the responses that I'm used to when it comes to discussing education (or the stuff you'd to know by a certain grade level) with my grandparents. The point that always came across was that we kids were getting off easier than how the adults had it back in their childhood. And what's worse, every time this topic came around, they would invariably ask, "So what are they teaching you in school these days?" And the idiot that I was, I'd brag about the most difficult thing (at least in my opinion at that point of time) that I'd heard about in school. This would lead them to quiz me on the subject, and determine how much I knew, which, I'd be made painfully aware of, is pretty much nothing. Of course, I'm much wiser now and just mumble when this question comes up, except in my CV.

But this was back in India, and back when I was growing up. Now in America, it seems that the opinion is quite different, at least that is the impression I get after watching the show Are you smarter than a 5th grader?: that kids in grade school learn and know much more than what adults know about, or have long forgotten if they were ever taught these things in the first place. I am sure that the adults generally agree that they were taught a lot more things which the kids these don't have to, e.g., do cursive writing, learn grammar and spelling, or use slide rules. But I also see that the adults generally are quick to follow it up with this disclaimer: "Kids these days have calculators to do these things, do you think they'd know what to do with a slide rule? Of course, I never understood any of it, and boy it was difficult." What am I missing? Why is it that something that I'd think you'd brag about with pride, like say knowing how to use a slide rule and still knowing how to use it, is often dismissed off with a disclaimer "we'd to do it, but we didn't know what the hell we were doing"?

Anyway, back to the show, I saw the promos while watching reruns of Simpson, and it did make me wonder, I'm ashamed to admit, if I knew the concepts that a fifth-grader should know. So I watched the show yesterday, and boy were the questions trivial. But people seemed to have trouble with it. Of course, there was this question: what is the minimum number of coins you'd need to make 61¢? and I answered 4, because I didn't know 50¢ coins existed!

Another question that I was not sure of, more like a nitpick, is: What gas do humans exhale that is important for the plants to survive? I think that is the exact wording, but I cannot guarantee. However, while the expected answer is probably obvious from the context of a fifth-grade level knowledge, I think that the question is ambiguous. Humans exhale air which has a significant amount of O₂ and CO₂. Now plants need both these gases to survive. So unless they clearly specify if they meant plant photosynthesis or plant respiration, the answer is unclear.

Am I right, or am I, in fact, NOT smarter than a 5th grader?