I was listening to the radio last night when the presenter re-played a clip from earlier on in the day. The clip contained somebody answering questions for a competition: the first question was about Katy Perry, which the person got right, but the second was "Who is the Prime Minister?". The contestant was stumped at the question, as it seemed they were not sure which prime minister the presenter was referring to, and when they realised that the question was about the British Prime Minister they were still unable to answer.
As hilarious as this seemed to be at first, I soon stopped laughing because it is actually disturbing that there are people out there who do not know who the leader of their country it (and I doubt that this person was trolling the questioner). At a minimum, I think people should know who the head of government/state and their local representatives are.
In the United Kingdom, there are at least three politicians everyone should be familiar with: the Prime Minister, their local Member of Parliament, and the Leader of the Opposition. In the United States, everyone should know who the president, their district's House Member, and the governor of their state all are. Obviously I think that people need to be able to name a greater number of politicians and their positions than the three I specified for each country, but they are sufficient as a minimum amount. The Queen (not a politician, but she is head of state), local councillors and federal/state senators would be next on my list.
To explain why I chose these positions, I think it is ridiculous to not know, at the very least, who the prime minister/president is: all the media surrounding their initial election win notwithstanding, they are in the news every day, and even if they were not, it takes about ten seconds to research them. It is important to know who your local MP/House Member is, as they represent your district in the government; in the UK, people should be familiar with the Leader of the Opposition, as they could become Prime Minister in the next general election; and in the US the governor is the highest ranking official in each state's government.
If that person did not know who the prime minister was before, hopefully they should do now. It is astounding that they managed to make it this long without knowing what his name is.
Wow it's worrying that there are people who don't know things like these. It reminds me of when our school's debating team a few years ago was n the supporting side of the debate on "The Bebo Generation cares little for the developing world/3rd world" and so gave out surveys to the various school years. While calculating the results, it was found that more people could name Britney Spears' children and the names of the Jonas Brothers than those who could name 5 developing countries. Some people, as answers for the latter question, even put (and I'm not making this up as I saw these filled-out surveys myself) Asia, Calcutta, Ireland, France, Africa and Germany: clearly some had difficulty understanding what a "developing country" was and others thought that Asia, Calcutta and Africa are countries. :/
ReplyDeleteHmm...I can't name any of Britney's children, and can name two of the Jonas Brothers (Joe and Nick; I had to look Kevin up!). As for five developing countries...selected randomly, Mexico, Malaysia, Pakistan, Bolivia, and Somalia are all in that category.
DeleteDon't worry, I do believe you with those answers! After all, there's a certain ex-governor in the US who thought that Africa was a country, too! :)
Well the correct answers were 1) Jayden James and Sean Preston 2) Joe, Nick, Kevin and someone even put the "Bonus-Jonas" Frankie who is their younger brother but isn't in the band (we had to look that up when we saw it) and your answers for the last question are all correct. :)
DeleteAt that level of their career or even that age, they should have known better but what can you do?
Well, I never knew about a "Bonus-Jonas"! :D
DeleteI guess the simplest suggestion would be to improve the education system, although that's easier said than done. :(