What do we expect?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I'm the first one to be suspicious of these man on the street videos. And yet, why should I be surprised at the results? One commenter\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/2016\/02\/what-do-we-expect.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"What do we expect?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I'm the first one to be suspicious of these man on the street videos. And yet, why should I be surprised at the results? One commenter\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/2016\/02\/what-do-we-expect.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Daffey Thoughts\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-02-03T15:55:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Dave Griffey\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Dave Griffey\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/2016\/02\/what-do-we-expect.html\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/2016\/02\/what-do-we-expect.html\",\"name\":\"What do we expect?\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2016-02-03T15:55:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2016-02-03T15:55:00+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/#\/schema\/person\/9de3f33a0818ebc53727444b649c82a7\"},\"description\":\"I'm the first one to be suspicious of these man on the street videos. And yet, why should I be surprised at the results? One commenter\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/2016\/02\/what-do-we-expect.html#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/2016\/02\/what-do-we-expect.html\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/2016\/02\/what-do-we-expect.html#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"What do we expect?\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/\",\"name\":\"Daffey Thoughts\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/#\/schema\/person\/9de3f33a0818ebc53727444b649c82a7\",\"name\":\"Dave Griffey\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/546cf1ab64797c201cc8ad19185f2e57?s=96&d=identicon&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/546cf1ab64797c201cc8ad19185f2e57?s=96&d=identicon&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Dave Griffey\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/author\/dgriffey\"}]}<\/script>\n","yoast_head_json":{"title":"What do we expect?","description":"I'm the first one to be suspicious of these man on the street videos. And yet, why should I be surprised at the results? One commenter","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/2016\/02\/what-do-we-expect.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"What do we expect?","og_description":"I'm the first one to be suspicious of these man on the street videos. And yet, why should I be surprised at the results? One commenter","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/2016\/02\/what-do-we-expect.html","og_site_name":"Daffey Thoughts","article_published_time":"2016-02-03T15:55:00+00:00","author":"Dave Griffey","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Dave Griffey","Est. reading time":"2 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/2016\/02\/what-do-we-expect.html","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/2016\/02\/what-do-we-expect.html","name":"What do we expect?","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/#website"},"datePublished":"2016-02-03T15:55:00+00:00","dateModified":"2016-02-03T15:55:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/#\/schema\/person\/9de3f33a0818ebc53727444b649c82a7"},"description":"I'm the first one to be suspicious of these man on the street videos. And yet, why should I be surprised at the results? One commenter","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/2016\/02\/what-do-we-expect.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/2016\/02\/what-do-we-expect.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/2016\/02\/what-do-we-expect.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"What do we expect?"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/","name":"Daffey Thoughts","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/#\/schema\/person\/9de3f33a0818ebc53727444b649c82a7","name":"Dave Griffey","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/546cf1ab64797c201cc8ad19185f2e57?s=96&d=identicon&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/546cf1ab64797c201cc8ad19185f2e57?s=96&d=identicon&r=g","caption":"Dave Griffey"},"url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/author\/dgriffey"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/924","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2805"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=924"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/924\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=924"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=924"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}

{"id":924,"date":"2016-02-03T15:55:00","date_gmt":"2016-02-03T15:55:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/2016\/02\/what-do-we-expect.html"},"modified":"2016-02-03T15:55:00","modified_gmt":"2016-02-03T15:55:00","slug":"what-do-we-expect","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/daffeythoughts\/2016\/02\/what-do-we-expect.html","title":{"rendered":"What do we expect?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

I\u2019m the first one to be suspicious of these man on the street videos<\/a>.\u00a0 And yet, why should I be surprised at the results?\u00a0 One commenter mentions a Huffington Post story about respondents at a university not knowing that George Washington was the general at Yorktown.\u00a0 Why would they?\u00a0 My boys\u2019 history texts in high school didn\u2019t mention it.\u00a0 Unless the teacher pointed it out, it wasn\u2019t there. <\/p>\n

Likewise, my boys\u2019 American History textbook in sixth grade barely mentioned the Declaration of Independence.\u00a0 It had two pages devoted to the Declaration.\u00a0 The first couple of paragraphs of the first page mentioned the Founders wanting a justification for revolution and a couple tidbits about the writing of it and a couple quotes.\u00a0 But that was it.\u00a0 60% of the rest was spent focusing on the fact that we shafted the Native Americans, we owned slaves and women couldn\u2019t vote (I found it interesting that it didn\u2019t mention that white men couldn\u2019t vote either, unless certain conditions were met).\u00a0 The second of the two pages was a giant Civil Rights History poster featuring Martin Luther King, Jr.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

So if you asked them things about the Declaration of Independence or who was at Yorktown, exactly why would you expect them to know anything?\u00a0 We\u2019re not teaching these things. We\u2019re teaching liberal indoctrination 101.\u00a0 That\u2019s what our schools teach.\u00a0 That\u2019s what our textbooks teach (BTW, I worked for a few months, and my wife worked for several years, in a textbook publishing company), and it\u2019s what our institutions of higher learning teach.\u00a0 Perhaps some teachers and professors buck the system, but they are the exceptions.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

These questions all ask things that would have been known from schoolbooks and classrooms about 20 or 30 years ago.\u00a0 Not today. Kids growing up today know little about our country, our history, or much of anything in the humanities.\u00a0 Most lessons focus on the bad of our history, with the sidebars being the main points of celebration.\u00a0\u00a0 Supplemental materials are almost exclusively focused on a liberal perspective, such as America as a genocidal nation of slave owners, America as an Imperial power, religious intolerance and secular enlightenment in Europe (all of these are handouts my boys received).\u00a0 <\/p>\n

So let\u2019s not assume these man on the street interviews are not without some level of editing for impact.\u00a0 But let\u2019s not be shocked that people under about 40 years old wouldn\u2019t know questions that would have been known decades ago.\u00a0 Unless they went looking for themselves, they probably never heard of such things. <\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"