As a 16 year old high school student, I am not extremely politically aware. However I could tell you who our vice president is, when the Declaration of Independence was signed, and the number of people in the Senate. Unfortunately, people nowadays, of all ages, are lacking basic and fundamental knowledge of our country’s government and its history, which is why I set out to discover how many people in Lake Mary High School really do have basic knowledge of our country’s government.
Sophomore Jacob Donovan agrees that “it is extremely embarrassing that people are 16, 17, 18 years old and don’t know that our president’s first name is Barack, and NOT Obama.” As unfortunate as this sounds, it is true.
To find out more on my observations on the lack of knowledge on basic information on the US I conducted an experiment. I created a short test of seven questions, and went around my school, asking 50 people. I asked people from all four grades, teachers, students from all learning levels (Standard, honors, gifted, AP), pretty much everyone was accounted for.
Before you begin assuming that the questions I asked weren’t as easy as I’m saying they were, the six questions were: 1) Who is the current Vice President of the United States of America? 2) What is the president of the United State’s first name? 3) Who is on the $5 bill? 4) What day is Independence Day on? 5) How many people are in the Senate? 6) What are the three main political parties? 7) What two countries border the US?
Out of the 50 people who I asked, only three people were able to get all 7 questions correct, so congratulations to Daniel Salas, Max Janowitz, and Alex Forehand on this accomplishment. On a more negative side, this is a serious problem that only three people out of fifty were able to get a 100 on my test. Half of the people questioned weren’t able to tell me that Abraham Lincoln is the man on the five dollar bill. This is basic kindergarten knowledge, people! There are some questions that I can understand people getting wrong like “How many people are in the Senate?” (there are 100) but when someone tells me that Asia is one of the countries that borders the US, I have no choice but to feel embarrassed for them. But to the person who said Asia, you are not alone, for another anonymous sophomore thought that it was Japan who bordered the great United States. Fortunately, only seven people didn’t know that Barack is our president’s first name, not Obama. But unfortunately, one of those poor seven, was a teacher. To finish up the results, 12/50 did not know that Joe Biden is our vice president, 7/50 did not know our president’s first name, 25/50 people surveyed did not know that Abraham Lincoln is on the $5 bill, 11/50 did not know that Independance day is July 4th, 39/50 didn’t know that 100 people are in the Senate, 23/50 did not know the three main political parties, and 9/50 weren’t able to tell me that Canada and Mexico bordered the US.
As my experiment shows, our nation has a serious issue with not knowing basic information on the greatest country on Earth. I don’t know what is causing this lack of knowledge, or how to fix it, but something should probably be done, because I don’t want to live in a world where a 16 year old thinks that Japan is a neighboring country to the United States.