I can accept that there are areas in which I'm not well-informed. I can't play an instrument, don't speak a foreign language (Latin notwithstanding, I could talk your ear off if Collegium Bostoniense were the actual name of this place), and don't really know a ton about nutrition outside of "donuts are not healthy." That's just the way life is.
But civics? I would like to think I'm sufficiently versed as far as that's concerned. I'm not as intimately informed or involved as many at Boston College, but I pay attention to the goings-on and the issues of the day. When Stephen Colbert wags his finger at someone or something, I can nod and possibly chuckle a bit.
As such, I was relatively shocked to find out that I am almost certainly inadequate in this area. And if you're fortunate enough to be an undergrad at BC, you too are probably insufficiently informed.
According to a report by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, American college students "were no better off than when they arrived [at college] in terms of acquiring the knowledge necessary for informed engagement in a democratic republic and global economy." To speak in terms of statistics, the average score on the ISI civic literacy test was a 54.2 percent.
The highest average score of any one senior class was a 69 percent. What's more is that this test wasn't exactly administered exclusively to Boston University undergrads, but to students from Harvard, Yale, Columbia, and so on down the line.
This isn't exactly the most comforting news - especially considering all the political activism and self-proclaimed punditry that permeates college campuses today.
Given this information, it seems probable that much of the activism on both sides of the political spectrum is not completely informed and, as such, is potentially problematic for a number of reasons.
With the buzz for the 2008 presidential elections at an unusually high level given how much of the process remains, it's mildly troubling that an entire demographic of voters - one that by definition is undergoing a rather comprehensive education (i.e., that whole "college" thing) - knows about half of what it ought to about how this nation's government came into being and how it exists today.
We might not be up a river without a paddle, but we certainly don't know how to steer.
What can be done? The ISI report contains several interesting pieces of information that point toward solutions.
The most obvious of these was the fact that schools with strong core curricula outperformed those with a less focused approach. Naturally, the more one learns of history, economics, and political thought, the better informed one will be about the status quo of a country (in this case, the United States). That said, the colleges featuring an extensive core of classes still only performed as high as 69 percent on the ISI test.
Perhaps a more formal education is required in civics? One would assume such a requirement would be more widespread given the topic's considerable relevance to our lives.
Yet even in a strong core curriculum such as BC's, the closest thing to a civic requirement is the history core, which only tangentially touches on issues of economic and political development as they relate to the current state of affairs and varies from class to class. One can only imagine what the bare minimum gets you at places like Brown and Tufts.
At the end of the day, a vested interest in politics and civic goings-on will be of the greatest importance.
Fourteen months remain before the next presidential election, yet the buzz surrounding nominations has grown so loud that one cannot go a single day without newspapers or television programs offering some news scoop or analysis on the significance of Barack Obama's middle name or John Edwards' mind-boggling haircut.
The fact that we care is certainly not a bad thing - but that doesn't change the fact that college students are well behind what is expected of them in terms of knowledge relevant to the election.
If improvement is to occur in this area and one-time inadequacy is to be prevented from becoming a trend, it lies in the realm that defines the college student: the classroom.
Dan Calanca is a Heights staff columnist. He welcomes comments at dcalanca@bcheights.com.
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