I don't know if it is a refreshing note or not, but cluelessness is a problem which is not confined to the US.  One of the bestsellers in Germany now is a book called Generation Doof:  Wie bloed sind wir eigentlich? [Generation Dumb:  How stupid are we anyway?]  The book opens with a description of the 2004 Miss East Germany beauty pageant in which the contestants were asked to locate their "realm", i.e., the former East Germany, on the map of Germany--not too difficult an assignment you might think.  I don't think that you need to speak German to appreciate the results:  http://de.youtube.com/watch?v=9JKOz4zq2F4

Maybe we ought to be collecting examples for an American edition of the book.

Your friend,
Bob Bennett
________________________________________
From: Academy of Legal Studies in Business (ALSB) Talk [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Mary-Kathryn Zachary [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Thursday, April 10, 2008 12:18 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Students and perceptions

There are clearly some student processing problems.

I asked my students a series of short answer, ethics and law-based questions
related to Elliott Spitzer's situation on their last test.  One student
wrote:

"Well, the first thing he did wrong was hiring a protestant."

Mary-Kathryn

----- Original Message -----
From: "Miller, Carol J" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, April 09, 2008 3:49 PM
Subject: Students and perceptions


> We worry that students are not grasping legal reasoning abilities.
> Perhaps the perception problem is even greater than we first imagined.
>
> A student asks special permission to take my Thursday unit exam (which
> takes the entire class period) on a different day because she has three
> exams on Thursday.  Then I get this e-mail from the student:
>
> Professor Miller,
>
> Sorry to bother you again, but if I am not taking the exam until Friday
> should I come to class on Thursday at the usual class time?
>
> student
>
>
> --
>
>
>