Oh, How Education Has Changed!

My wife, who recently retired from teaching after 34 years at the elementary level, was going through some of her parent's collection of materials folders and found the two attached images of her dad's junior high - he only finished the 8th grade just before WWII - report card from 1940 and a certificate of completion for courses from 1938.

Why do I share this with you? Well, those of you who most likely have seen a child's or relative's report card from the elementary school level these days may understand that the report cards which are sent home today are in some school districts at least several full 8.5"x11" pages of detailed marks for one student's performance. When looking at the attached images, you'll note that the pen was deliberately placed next to the post card size report card from back then to give a comparison to what is produced by a teacher today; multiple pages which supposedly make things clearer for the parent/guardian to understand how the child is doing in school.

You'll note what topics were covered on the certificate of completion paper for Social Studies which don't even appear - because they're not taught in pubic schools anymore - on report cards today.

So, my question is this... why does it take far more documentation for today's students than it did for students prior to WWII, when today's students aren't even studying the same subjects? (The U.S. History taught today is NOTHING like the U.S. History of then. And, they no longer even teach Civics, or Citizenship. Instead, today students in many public schools are learning how to be "social justice warriors".)