1. George Washington
2. Abraham Lincoln
3. Benjamin Franklin
4. Paul Revere
5. Thomas Edison
6. Alexander Graham Bell
7. Neil Armstrong
She also guessed Pasteur, Mozart, and Bach. Okay, so her understanding of the national origin of historical figures is still a little fuzzy at this point :-) But overall she managed to come up with a respectable list.
The answers given by the government-school educated teens?
1. Martin Luther King Jr.: 67%
2. Rosa Parks: 60%
3. Harriet Tubman: 44%
4. Susan B. Anthony: 34%
5.Benjamin Franklin: 29%
6. Amelia Earhart: 25%
7. Oprah Winfrey: 22%
8. Marilyn Monroe: 19%
9. Thomas Edison: 18%
10. Albert Einstein: 16%
So there's an overlap of exactly 2 individuals. I'll leave it up to you to decide which list you think does a better job at answering the question...(HT: Grant Jones at "The Dugout")
3 comments:
Ack! Marilyn Monroe and Opray Winfrey scored higher than Edison and Einstein???
Well, if the question was fame, then all those names qualify, since you can't quantify fame. Not a surprising way to phrase the question, considering we live in a culture that worships fame.
I think the answers to this question reveal so much about the responders and what they've learned over their lifetimes, how they spend their time, etc.
Personally, I'm just grateful Paris Hilton and Britney Spears weren't on the list of teens' answers, and not surprised they weren't on your daughter's list :)
If you read how the reoprt was done they asked students to name the 10 most famouse americans then they asked them to name the 10 most famous american women, then combined the 2 list and reported as "The Most Famous Americans" intentionally skewing the results
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