Things you can’t believe your teenager doesn’t know

[Annoyingwurringnoise]

My teenage DS, who went to a Church of England primary school, does not know the song Little Donkey. I am utterly perplexed as to how this can possibly be. He’s been a donkey twice in nativity plays, once at preschool and once at school, but he swears he doesn’t remember Little Donkey.

What things have you found out your teenagers don’t know that’s just left you scratching your head in disbelief?

Little Donkey aside, I would be ashamed if my teens couldn't identify common vegetables, tell the time, have a basic grasp of important historical facts, understand the political landscape, have a reasonable world view and at least a basic understanding of economics.

We are a solid working class family, no airs and graces but these topics have all been covered in school, at the dinner table, political commentary is often found on Social Media and we have travelled/lived in different countries (children not educated in the UK).

This stuff is important - how can our young people engage meaningfully in the world without the basics??

DinosApple - What was the very old quiz book you were using? Just curious to see how well I would do!

My 28 year old niece thought Sinn Fein was a person.

trouble is, this is all very subjective
what is a common vegetable? What is a basic historical fact? The most basic core fact to one person is irrelevant trivia to someone else. WHy is the conquest ( which started the Norman dynasty) seen as more important than the WHite ship?( WHich ended the Norman dynasty) I would argue the White ship far more relevant, with its timeless tale of drink driving and peer pressure, yet very few teens have heard of it. But everyone knows about 1066 - much less relevant to the average 18 year old in a pub

Agree that "basic" changes over time. Sending a WhatsApp or a Tweet is basic now and everyone should understand it even if they choose not to use it.

But I wish more people really understood even the basics of money, rental contracts, tax, budgeting, mortgages, a marriage contract, credit cards, interest rates, consumer rights, insurance, employment rights, basic language skills- it would be so much better for them. Scammers have a field day because so many people just don't - and are therefore very easy to manipulate. But it's very hard to get people to accept that this should be taught, without being branded as someone unpleasant. Yet the messes we all get into when we don't know this stuff.......

what is a common vegetable

Oh come on.

Telling the time is covered mostly in year 3 now. But if you looked at the actual schemes of work teachers are expected to follow, nowhere near enough time is spent on teaching children how to tell the time. It's pushed later in the year into 1 or 2 weeks, and then you have fractions which is covered in a 6 week block. If they don't get it in 2 weeks, they don't get it.

I disagree. Basic history - ancient & modern is taught in schools. Curricilum covering ancient civilisations, the industrial revolution, the world wars etc. Finding it boring is one thing but deliberate ignorance another thing entirely.

As for vegetables - aubergine & cabbage are hardly exotic.

Life skills and knowledge are important for so much more than just knowing. Our judgements, decisions - everything is predicated on context. It's not funny if your kid can't identify a potatoe or the animal that bacon comes from. It's sad and avoidable.

Curriculum - fat fingers today

My teens and young adult never sang Little Donkey.
They learned about the Berlin Wall in history but were 🤯 that it came down when I was a teen.

what one person considers common is not what another person considers common.

WHat about things like swede, turnip, artichoke, - I've never cooked any of that at home, yet grew up with it. My kids may or may not recognise these, I dont know.

If you were given a bowl of mashed swede, and a bowl of mashed turnip, would you know the difference?

I would know parsnip from turnip, but not swede from turnip, personally

ANd have to admit I have never sussed out the difference between a tangerine , a satuma and a clementine

Cant tell currents from raisons from sultanas

ANd dont even start me on gourds

Some people might call these common fruits and veg that everyone should be able to name. SOme people might not

I disagree. Basic history - ancient & modern is taught in schools. Curricilum covering ancient civilisations, the industrial revolution, the world wars etc. Finding it boring is one thing but deliberate ignorance another thing entirely

There is a lot of history to cover. So there is no way it can all be covered - so who gets to decide what to cover.

Geography - a lot of geography. What knowledge is important?
Science
Maths
Literature
Culture

What I think is important is the ability to think critically, analyse, research, understand biases.

I am sure there are lots of things I know that you don't and vice versa - and both of us would be surprised that the other person doesn't know that.

but there is no such thing as "basic history"

for some, that means 1066 and Henry Viii.

But for others, those two islands of historical knowledge are totally irrelevant

My 23 yo DD knows who the Beatles are - they did John Lennon as a history topic in yr 6, ie about 2010.

what one person considers common is not what another person considers common.

When faced with a raw lettuce and a raw aubergine, I would expect a neurotypical teenager who had been raised in the UK to be able to name them.

Telling the time must be covered at home. It's not given enough curriculum coverage and it's also developmental.
Dd didn't grasp it until year 6/7 when it just clicked.

maybe most

I guess a certain number wont be able to tell a lettuce from a cabbage, and a certain number wont have come across aubergines, except as a emoji, where it has a different meaning

Teacher here. I had to explain recently to 16/17 year olds what an album was. They couldn't understand that it was all songs by one artist, and how it was different to Now that's what I call music 98 or whatever. I guess they just listen to playlists now on Spotify.
Another thing that baffles me is many don't know how to work email or remember to check emails - yet they check their social media messages all the time!
You would also be surprised it's quite common not to be able to tell the time, even in private schools.

Yeah, I would be unimpressed by anyone who could recognise the meaning behind an aubergine emoji but couldn't identify an actual aubergine.

Some people seem almost scared of exposing kids to anything old or obsolete. When did this attitude start, I wonder?

I remember a discussion on text books and school books, where the very idea of having text books was rubbished by more than one poster on the grounds that “knowledge becomes obsolete all the time!!!” Well, if we’re talking about the very cutting edge of physics research or whatever, sure. If we’re talking about basic stuff included in textbooks for under 18s, no, knowledge does not become obsolete very quickly and most of the stuff that is taught stays relevant for decades and decades. And - getting to the point here - when something does become obsolete, you just teach the fact that the knowledge has changed and have a discussion about it!

I have a bunch of old “The World We Live In” type general knowledge books for kids on our home bookshelves, and they contain the odd obsolete fact, like listing Pluto as a planet. So what? You talk about it and discuss the fact that Pluto used to be considered a planet and now it isn’t, and then that leads to an interesting discussion about how we define planets and how scientific knowledge works and how scientists themselves sometimes update stuff, and that becomes an interesting bit of knowledge in itself. I’m glad we have those old books. They’re great!

Same poster was freaking out about the fact that Oxford Learning Tree books contained stuff like Dad recording stuff with a camcorder that uses film, and “oh, but the kids won’t understand!!!” Er…. If you are doing an OLT book with your child and they are not familiar with camcorders, then you just talk about camcorders and film and how older cameras used to use film (and a few specialized cameras still do) and then kids can learn about the past. Why’s that such a threatening idea? Yet some people genuinely seemed to feel that it was somehow scary or “too hard” to just teach kids about stuff we did a few decades ago.

It’s weird.

Surprised by email.

Maybe it's more useful later when they have to apply for things like Uni etc

I hope DS knows what an album is. He has seen my records around the place.

I work with quite a lot of 16 year olds, and none of them have heard of the Radio Times

We were playing some quizzes over Christmas with various teen family members and I can’t believe how poor their general knowledge is. All sorts of stuff I knew or was familiar with growing up in the 70s they’ve never heard of - world leaders, famous global landmarks, famous fiction, well all sorts of things really. It was quite shocking.

Why should they?
A magazine with TV listings in - and not even for all the channels.

If families don't buy it, why should they know about it?

There are plenty of TV listing magazines out there - but I could only name Radio Times and TV Times - and I am not sure if TV Times is still going

Camcorders ('camera + video recorders') used tape, not film. In cassettes. You played them back in a VCR linked to a telly. My dad had one the he passed on to me. It is in a cupboard gathering dust. The gizmos that used film were called 'cine cameras' or 'home movie cameras'.