But ours goes to 11...

I interpret in two social studies classes: seventh grade and eighth grade. The seventh grade class is the one where the kids are currently studying ancient Greece (big test on Monday); the eighth grade class is currently studying the events leading up to the Revolutionary War. When I was in eighth grade our social studies class was all about Ohio history, which they no longer study. This makes me a little sad, because the kiddies should know about the cool stuff George Rogers Clark and Simon Kenton did and it ticks me off, because the kids should have to memorize all 88 Ohio counties like we were forced to. Not like I seriously remember all 88 counties...one time Sis and I were on a road trip and we tried to name all 88 and failed miserably. I believe we could remember about 45 of them. And back in the day before Ohio went to number stickers on the license plates to identify the county, when one could still read the name of the county on the bottom of the plate, I can recall being surprised every now and then by one of the counties that I had forgotten about.
Nowadays, the eighth grade kids are supposed to learn the states and capitals. I find this to be laughable, mainly because this is something pupils in my time had to learn in the fourth grade. Also, it's slightly upsetting to realize that the eighth grade students cannot find most of the states on the map, let alone their capitals. I mean, is America becoming the land of the idiots? Now, I admit, I do confuse Vermont and New Hampshire; at times, forgetting which one is west of the other (although, thanks to me vicariously repeating eighth grade, I've learned which one is which). But, some of these kids have difficulty finding Pennsylvania and Kentucky; these are states that border Ohio and they can't locate them. Thankfully, these students CAN locate Ohio.
Anyway, right now we're studying the events leading up to the Revolutionary War and the students participated in an activity where they had to pick up different cards describing the events (i.e. The Stamp Act, the Boston Massacre, the Proclamation of 1763), read the cards, and then fill out a chart with summaries of each event. On the chart, the students had to rank how upset they would feel about each event, on a scale of 1 to 8 (one being not upset, eight being upset enough to revolt), and then provide an explanation for their ranking. Some of the rankings were interesting, such as the kid who put down a 1 for the Boston Massacre, explaining that the colonists were the one who provoked the British. And then there was the deaf student with whom I work, who put down an 8.5 for one of the events. When I saw that one, I was like, "M------, the scale is only one to eight. It doesn't go any higher." I think he thought it was a 1 to 10 scale. But when I was saying that to him, the whole time I was thinking, "But ours goes to 11..."