Students don't grasp U.S. History, page 1

i need to be involved with something to learn about it.

You are exactly the kind of student that would have done very well with better teachers. You said your memory isn't that great.(I paraphrased your wording)
Memories should be for family, spouse, children, nice times, not memorizing dates. Why should students have to memorize dates, when they can look them up. Why should people have to memorize facts and figures, when we have world almanacs? What they should know how to do, is WHERE to find the answers.

i would be less concerned with the idea that kids are failing history and more concerned that they don't fully understand how to manage money. i'm not just talking about plain arithmetic, i'm talking about things like loan types and how they work or different ways to invest. our country is in a hole and it has at least SOMETHING to do with the fact that people don't understand money. i think that's a bigger problem than not remembering "who" did "what" "when".

Another great point. You're now getting into what I really wanted this thread to become, a discussion on education in general, and where it has gone wrong.
It is amazing how many students had NO life skills. They couldn't even balance a check book. No one ever showed them!

Let me let you in on a dirty little secret. It's the Curriculum Committee. People wonder why schools teach what they do. The answer is that a group of professors on the Curriculum Committee decide on what the curriculum should contain, then put it up to a vote of the department faculty. Majority wins. You think the democrats and republicans have smoke-filled back rooms? You should see the curriculum process!
First of all, some of the professors are just down-right lazy. They want to do as little work as possible with their classes, so that they can spend their precious time writing research papers. If they can find textbook vendors that supply all of the material that they need- such as powerpoint presentations, tests, answers , grading software, that's a sure way to make it into the curriculum. That way, they don't even need to UNDERSTAND what they're teaching! And we expect the STUDENTS to understand.
Next, there is the trading of a left-handed pitcher for a centerfielder, or more appropriately "I'll support your new class, if you support mine". Never mind if the class is something like "The sexlife of the spotted slug".
Then there is the "You can't put your class in there because there aren't many other schools teaching it". One of the things you have to understand is that most academics are FOLLOWERS, not LEADERS. When they develop a new curriculum, the first thing they do is google other similar institutional curricula, and try to copy whatever they do,as a start.
Now that's a sure way to make sure that the colleges stay about 10 years BEHIND the curve! Furthermore, these are the SAME professors that will charge students with PLAGIARISM! I wonder where the students learned how to plagiarize?
Then there is the obsession with Bloom's taxonomy. For those not in academia, a quick summary-
When classes are devised, there are a list outcomes or competencies that a given class must produce, such as "Be able to understand a business plan"
or "Be able to construct a business plan".
Most people understand that the first item requires less skill than the second. The competencies involve verbs (understand and construct) and nouns (business plan). Blooms taxonomy assigns "levels" to each major verb- typically 100, 200, 300 and 400 levels. 100 level (typically freshmen )courses should have competencies that are mostly 100, etc. In theory, that makes sense, and the spirit of the taxonomy, I have no problem with. Unfortunately, many times, the focus becomes the verbs themselves, and the material doesn't really reflect the level of skill. In other words, they may REALLY be teaching a 100 competency in a 400 level course, but they've fooled the committee by cleverly using a 400 level verb.Again, with the "buddy" system they use, committee members wink and pass the course, knowing that the outsiders that enforce the rules of curriculum development, don't have a clue as to the technical meaning of the competencies.

I certainly could go on and on, but I would rather hear from others. I'm sure I'll get some academics that have a ball with my post, but I'm used to it.