Is our children learning?

I just finished grading the midterms for one of my two world history classes.  I have to say that most of them were decent and some were astonishingly good.  The problems I saw were for the most part problems of expressing ideas clearly, not of knowledge or comprehension.  For example, one student informed me that:

“Islam was divided between the Sunnis and the Shits.”

Another one demonstrated thoughtful self-correction:

“The caliph was chosen by the wealthy peeps people.”

For some reason, however, many of my students seem to be convinced that the ancient Egyptians were Christian.  Oh well– more work to do.

Tags: exams