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January 17, 2008
Am I smarter than a 5th grader?
First off, if there are any misspellings here, please, treat them as ironic, considering the topic at hand. I was loafing around the house a little while ago, when the TV show "Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?" came on.
Now, I know the conceit of the show: kids know a lot more than adults about certain things. Of course they know it, they have to in order to pass tests. But the kind of stuff the fifth graders know is usually of little import to the average adult. For example, some of the questions I saw were "Who said 'give me liberty or give me death'?"; "99% of the solar system's mass is contained where?"; "What is the least common denominator of 12 and 36?" All of these have the distinct characteristic of being pure trivia. It pains me to say this, as I am well-known for my ability to remember trivia, but it's all pretty damn useless. That's why it's called trivia.
Now, there are a few instances where knowing who said "give me liberty or give me death" might be good for an adult. Most of them involve winning money on a game show. However, a fifth grader better know who said it, because it's on his damn test. If he doesn't know, he gets a bad grade. There's little incentive for an adult to know that, because the odds of ever needing to know that are very small. After the average fifth grader takes the test, he'll quickly forget all about Patrick Henry.
So, what I'm saying is, it's specious to suggest a fifth grader is smarter than an adult because he might know crap like that. Judging by Zorn's list of fifth grader wisdom, it might be fair to say that adults are a little wise than fifth graders. Well... most adults are. There are some pretty stupid adults.
However, it is kind of cumbersome to entitle a show, "Are you better at remembering stuff you learned in fifth grade but no longer need to know than a person who is currently in fifth grade?" Plus Jeff Foxworthy might not be able to say all that.
entry no. 1061
Posted at January 17, 2008 11:18 PM