News

We got one!

Friday, August 22, 2008

August 22, 2008--The United States will now be slightly less humiliated on the world stage, as the Americans won a gold medal today in the CivEd Civic Skills event, which measures the abilities of a country’s students to distinguish fact from opinion, interpret political cartoons, and comprehend political messages. Team USA also had a relatively strong showing in the overall civic knowledge competition, finishing fifth. Why the sudden leap in the international standings? Eric McLuhan, son of the late media theorist Marshall McLuhan, hypothesized that the disparity between the Americans’ performance in civics and core subjects like reading, math, and science could be attributed to the popularity in the United States of 24-hour cable news channels, whose content predominately concerns American politics. He also pointed out that these channels are on television, while exercises in reading, math, and science typically take place between the covers of a book.

Interestingly, Poland also took home its first medals of the 2008 games in the civics events, as did Cyprus and Greece. Turkey may want to watch out.

Finally, it came down to the wire, but Finland was ultimately able to edge out Hong Kong for the top overall medal count, putting up 35 to Hong Kong’s 33. Singapore finished a distant third with 16 medals; South Korea and Japan both finished with 15. 

---

Page 1 of 1 pages