Fun Facts About Peter the Great

I worked the CSETs Saturday and had a history teacher’s room. The walls were covered with the kind of posters that teachers assign now instead of term papers or other contributors to literacy. The posters consisted of bullet points about notable people in history such as Louis XIV, Maria Theresa, Elizabeth I of England, and Peter the Great of Russia. The point of the assignment doesn’t appear to be to have the students learn anything meaningful, either about history or about how to research a topic. It seems like it was more an opportunity for the Future of the Planet to sniff the various colored markers that they use to produce the posters. Some of them appear to be group projects. We are teaching the kids how to create a Power Point slide.

Peter the Great was the closest to my desk, so I was able to learn a lot about this most remarkable ruler of all the Russias. To wit:

· Peter the Great was born in 1622 and died in 1725
· The next poster gave his DOB as 1972.
· He became Czar in 1682 while still a child, this was also the year of his first marriage, and he had 11 children.
· In 1696 he became the sole Star of Russia; prior to that year he had co-starred with his brother.
· He established the first Russian Navy.
· He took Russia out of the Dork Ages and brought forth modern science. (That may explain some of the time travel and other remarkable achievements. Well, not the dork part.)
· His second marriage was in 1712.
· He founded St. Petersburg in 1703 and died one year later.

Who says we’re raising a nation of uhliterates? I bet many of these kids are really good at Grand Theft Auto and World of Warcraft.

And the teachers? They should be nothing if not proud.

No Child Left Behind, indeed.