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I dont know who fault it is, lousey teaching, general disinterest in class, or the fact that she was blonde but it was very easily the stupidest thing i have ever heard. In global studies were are learning about WWI and our teacher brought up and a map and began to talk about germanys alliance with Austria-Hungary when a girl in the front row raised her hand and asked this very same question: "Did the Brittains win?" Wow. Not only did she not know that Germans lost WWI, she said the word "Brittains" to describe the Brittish forces.

[QUOTE=CopperWater]I dont know who fault it is, lousey teaching, general disinterest in class, or the fact that she was blonde but it was very easily the stupidest thing i have ever heard. In global studies were are learning about WWI and our teacher brought up and a map and began to talk about germanys alliance with Austria-Hungary when a girl in the front row raised her hand and asked this very same question: "Did the Brittains win?" Wow. Not only did she not know that Germans lost WWI, she said the word "Brittains" to describe the Brittish forces.[/QUOTE]It's not that bad.....

I thought most highschoolers atleast knew who won WWI. Guess i am just a buthole.

[QUOTE=CopperWater]I thought most highschoolers atleast knew who won WWI. Guess i am just a buthole.[/QUOTE]The teacher might have known but she might not have neccesserily have told the girl.

lol

how old is she?

She was 16

and she didnt know the Gremans lost? well i guess im not surprised

I also have this kind of experiences at school, even though I can't bring up any examples right now. How is it possible to be 15+ and not no that kind of things about WW I, maybe it's just a big lack of intrest but I just don't get it.
Btw what was here next question, "Is there a second world war, since you are calling this one the first?"

Technically speaking, when the Germans surrendered, they were not yet losing. They were actually pretty far into France when the German High Command realized they couldn't win anymore.

[QUOTE=Sytze]Technically speaking, when the Germans surrendered, they were not yet losing. They were actually pretty far into France when the German High Command realized they couldn't win anymore.[/QUOTE]
Look, mister. If you're 16 you should know Germany lost the war, not the technicalities.

By the way, surrendering is just another way of saying 'I lose!'.

[QUOTE=ik911]By the way, surrendering is just another way of saying 'I lose!'. [/QUOTE]
I'm not quite sure if you can speak of winning and losing in wars. But that's beside the point. What I said was that the german command saw they could never win the war. That didn't meant they were losing when they threw in the towel, though.

Ignorance can be remedied. Deliberate stupidity, usually taking the form of cultural blinders, is much harder to remedy. To her credit, the person you mentioned actually asked a question, so she cared about the answer. Don't knock this. Criticize her family, the society she's in, the educational system, if you'd like, but give her credit for curiosity and a desire for knowledge.

And this is why Fable is a God with infinite wisdom to share with the masses.

[QUOTE=fable]Ignorance can be remedied. Deliberate stupidity, usually taking the form of cultural blinders, is much harder to remedy. To her credit, the person you mentioned actually asked a question, so she cared about the answer. Don't knock this. Criticize her family, the society she's in, the educational system, if you'd like, but give her credit for curiosity and a desire for knowledge.[/QUOTE]

Thats a good point. I've dealt with situations like said above and their is a definate distinction between someone asking what something means, and being called on to provide and answer then not knowing and not caring.

For myself, I always asked, I wanted to know when, why, where and how of everything. At her age she should have been taught already. Her teachers may have been incompetant, she could have a bad memory, she might have been sick for a week and missed the section in a previous year's class.

As for another thing, taking a look at my education, and just looking at this forum with all of the people from other countries speaking MY language, some just as well or even BETTER than I can. I have to say, my countries education sucks. It is rare to find someone outside of a linguistics major that can speak a second language fluently here, people from what I've seen in general don't care. They don't care to do anything in school aside from doing just well enough to go to the next level. Whether thats graduating and getting a job, or getting into college or whatever. The teachers involved are lacking motivation from a horrible system not treating them as they should be and the students run rampant. Learning suffers. If the girl doesn't know, there could be a ton of reasons for it. I spent my first year in Spanish class waiting for my teacher to arrive with her coffee and arrange her desk every day. I had her as my first class and she showed up 15 minutes late, forgot her coffee 3-4 days a week, ran off to get some, came back 10 minutes later, and drank her coffee while shuffling papers and checking her lesson plan. Thats at least 30 minutes out of a 42 minute class wasted more than half of my school week, every week. She verbally attacked the students when we asked if we should go home and get some more sleep until she's ready. Insulted the class after we commented on her poor teaching. She still works there last I heard, they wouldn't fire her. Tenure they said. Needless to say, English is the only language I can speak.

There's a very logical reason why most Americans don't want to learn another language: they simply don't need it. I think more than 80% of the Americans have never left their country, and a large part of them has probably never left their state. If they go on vacation, they don't need another language: either they go to another state (and why not, the USA is a huge , beautiful country), or they go to a place where people speak english (which is eh... most places). Here in Belgium, everyone had to learn 3 languages at highschool: English, French, and German (Greek, Latin and Spanish are optional), but that's because it's necessary: Belgium is a very small country and, just like Canada, a bilingual country, but Belgium is as large as a big Canadian city: everyone speaks French 30km south of my house. If you don't speak French and English fluently, there's a very slim chance you'll ever get an office job. In America, everything is english: people don't speak a second language because they'll probably never have to use it.

[QUOTE=moltovir]There's a very logical reason why most Americans don't want to learn another language: they simply don't need it. I think more than 80% of the Americans have never left their country, and a large part of them has probably never left their state. If they go on vacation, they don't need another language: either they go to another state (and why not, the USA is a huge , beautiful country), or they go to a place where people speak english (which is eh... most places). Here in Belgium, everyone had to learn 3 languages at highschool: English, French, and German (Greek, Latin and Spanish are optional), but that's because it's necessary: Belgium is a very small country and, just like Canada, a bilingual country, but Belgium is as large as a big Canadian city: everyone speaks French 30km south of my house. If you don't speak French and English fluently, there's a very slim chance you'll ever get an office job. In America, everything is english: people don't speak a second language because they'll probably never have to use it.[/QUOTE]

Thats a good point, still, they don't really teach it right from my experience. If I had been introduced to a second language younger, I probably would have been more apt to learn it than at the age of 15. I suppose the reason they don't bother to teach kids when they are younger is the same reason you provided though. We don't need it, not unless we dediced to translate as a career.

[QUOTE=fable]Ignorance can be remedied. Deliberate stupidity, usually taking the form of cultural blinders, is much harder to remedy. To her credit, the person you mentioned actually asked a question, so she cared about the answer. Don't knock this. Criticize her family, the society she's in, the educational system, if you'd like, but give her credit for curiosity and a desire for knowledge.[/QUOTE]

This theory of you is great, but the fact that she doesn't know implies that she doesn't care. Because if she had cared, if only a little bit, she would have picked it up somewhere before. In a book, on television or on the internet. You say that she is showing intrest by asking the question, but maybe she just asked because she is intrested in a good grade and not in the WW itself.

There was a WWI!?! Who was in it?

[QUOTE=Ned Flanders]There was a WWI!?! Who was in it?[/QUOTE]
I think it was the Romans versus the Ay-rabs. I'm not sure who won, though.

[QUOTE=arno_v]This theory of you is great, but the fact that she doesn't know implies that she doesn't care. Because if she had cared, if only a little bit, she would have picked it up somewhere before. In a book, on television or on the internet. You say that she is showing intrest by asking the question, but maybe she just asked because she is intrested in a good grade and not in the WW itself.[/QUOTE]

We're making an assumption here about her home life: that she's been exposed to these facts before, that she's been encouraged to learn and retain information, that she's been treated as an intelligent individual. From what I've personally seen and heard, that's not always the case. I personally was on the frequent receiving end of adult condescension when I was a child, and in adulthood repeatedly had the disgusting experience of watching parents belittle their children in front of me, to me. Although my parents never used the "unintelligent" argument, I've heard it in the mouth of others; and it doesn't take a psychology major to realize that if you hear something like that often enough, you start to believe it. Especially in your childhood.

So we can't automatically assume that this person doesn't care. Her parents may never have had any interest in educating her. They may have ignored her, told her she was stupid, etc. She may have fallen subsequently into peer groups that encouraged a general unconcern about education.

What we do know for a fact is one thing: that she asked a question. In a nation whose attention span is deliberately kept as low as possible by endless entertainment to encourage endless purchase, I find this question heartening. If her teacher follows it up correctly, then how the student reacts will determine her background and interest.