Should Americans Be Expected To Know This?

Like you, I have seen many versions of the video (see post – Will Not Happen On Our Campus) where people are asked basic questions and virtually no one seems to know anything.

So rather than feel sad or even scared at that apparent lack of American cultural literacy and the ramifications of that lack of academic prowess, let me lead with a positive note.

Life Long FriendsBy the time a student has spent one year on the Monticello College campus, they will have mastered all of the questions below and a lot more.

I challenge you to grill any of my 2nd year students with the questions listed below. I can personally guarantee that you will be impressed and a little envious of their reservoir of knowledge.

While I think that all of our students are very bright and extraordinary, there is no question–they put in well over a 1,000 hours of study each year to reach this level of proficiency.

Try your hand at these questions…who knows? Maybe you are smarter than you thought or maybe you will decide that it might be time to enroll at Monticello College.

 

50 Questions All 2nd Year MC Students Can Answer

  1. What are major wars in which the US participated?
  2. What are the continents of the globe?
  3. What are the names of 5 American Founders?
  4. Who wrote the Declaration of Independence? Can you recite it?
  5. What are the 7 articles of the US Constitution?
  6. Can you name the Supreme Court justices? How many are there?
  7. How many members are there in the House of Representatives and the Senate? How are they selected?
  8. Can you name 5 different forms of government? Can you detail each one?
  9. What is the Bill of Rights and can you name them? How many amendments are there today?
  10. In what continent are the following countries found? Latvia, Viet Nam, Ukraine, Venezuela, South Africa, China, Libya, France, United States, India, Great Britain, Japan, Mozambique, Canada, and Guatemala.
  11. What year was Jamestown established?
  12. Who is George Wythe?
  13. Can you explain the Tyranny/Anarchy Cycle, including the method of measuring political power used by the American Founders?
  14. Who is Benedict Arnold? Who is Nathan Hales?
  15. Who is Robert Morris? What is the history the Battle of Trenton?
  16. Can you relate the history of Shay’s Rebellion?
  17. Who is John Locke?
  18. Can you outline US monetary history?
  19. In the US, who can legally declare war?
  20. Who is Malcolm X?
  21. Who are the Senators from your state?
  22. What is the religious text of the Moslem world?
  23. What are the religious texts of the Jewish faith?
  24. Who is Calvin?
  25. What is Marbury v Madison?
  26. What is Mercantilism?
  27. What is the name of the Israeli legislative body?
  28. What is the origin of the term “Separation of Church and State” and what is the common usage today?
  29. What is a Statesman?
  30. What is Collectivism?
  31. What is Libertarianism?
  32. What is Marxism?
  33. What is Secular Humanism?
  34. Can you explain Natural Law in detail?
  35. Who is Cicero?
  36. What is “Natural Aristocracy” and who coined the phrase?
  37. What is the Northwest Ordinance?
  38. What are Franklin’s five points of the American Religion?
  39. How have Natural Rights been eroded by the 14th, 16th, and 17th amendments to the US Constitution?
  40. What is the proper role of Government?
  41. Who are or what are the following? Give personal details and their philosophies or what they are known for: Blackstone, Supreme Court, Federalist Papers, Tocqueville, Montesquieu, and Bastiat.
  42. Can you expound on the following periods and subjects? Antediluvian period, Mesopotamian period, Greece City-states, Roman Republic, Roman Empire, Middle Eastern History, Christian Era, Dark Ages, Islamic History, Renaissance, the Reformation, Enlightenment, Mesoamerica, Chinese History, The Crusades, and British History.
  43. Can you expound on the following personalities/philosophies? Moses, Plato, Aristotle, Christ, Paul, Aurelius, Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, Calvin, Bacon, Descartes, Locke, Marx, Rousseau, Hegel, Emerson, Thoreau, Wilbur, Economics, Capitalism, Free Enterprise, Socialism, Fascism, Communism, and Natural Law.
  44. Can you explain the following scientific processes or principles? Osmosis, Meiosis, Mitosis, The Periodic Table, Atomic History, E=MC2, Bernoulli’s Principle, Occam’s Razor, Alchemy, The Pacific Rim, The Soil Food Web, Plate Tectonics, H2o, the Five Steps of The Scientific Method, The Law of Hydraulics, Gravity, Inertia, Centrifugal Force, AC Current versus DC Current, the Food Chain, the Hydrological Cycle, Sedimentary, Metamorphic, Igneous, the Process of Petrifaction, Carbon Dating, Astronomy, the Human Circulatory System, the Human Respiratory System, the Human Nervous System, the Human Reproductive System, CPR, and the Human Lymphatic System.
  45. Who is Galileo?
  46. What are arthropods? What are protozoa?
  47. Who painted the Mona Lisa? Who is Picasso?
  48. Name 3 Art Periods? What is pointillism? What is Surrealism? What is Abstractism?
  49. What is prose? What is allegory? What is fiction/non-fiction?
  50. What is poetry? What is tragedy? What is iambic pentameter?

Krislyn Elliott & Lauren Swanepoel

Krislyn Elliott and Lauren Swanepoel act more like sisters than moms as they take really slow walks through the woods together, looking at and taking pictures of every plant they see & wishing they could remember their names and uses more thoroughly. They also like concocting herbal teas, salves, tinctures and strange drinks.

Krislyn is from Utah and has loved learning about plants since an unusually cool high school biology teacher took his classes on neighborhood botany walks. She has always been fascinated and constantly amazed at the power and beauty of plants.

Lauren is from South Africa, she and her family emigrated to Utah almost 10 years ago. They have fallen in love with the area and know more about this state & the great places to explore here than most Utah natives.

We both feel strongly about taking care of our families with natural methods and the abundant medicine we have growing right around us. We are trying to learn as much as we can about our magical local plants and are looking forward to sharing some of our favorites with you.

William DeMille

Director of Georgic Develeopment

William DeMille is a lifelong vegetable farmer. He studied Horticulture and Agronomy at Northwest Missouri University, Maryville. He holds a certificate in aquaponic engineering and production from Cornell University, NY, and another from GrowHaus Aquaponics in Denver, CO. He also studied soil regeneration and is a graduate of Dr. Elaine’s Soil Food Web School. He is the Director of Georgic Development for The Center for American Legacy Studies.

William is a farm consultant establishing several agricultural startups since 2005 in Missouri, Oregon, Colorado, Utah, and Nevada and he currently manages 2500 acres of grassland for the Ruby Mountain Foods Company.

His latest venture is a market gardening school called Georgic Revolution where he teaches a 17-week course onsite in Nevada covering soil health and vegetable production without the use of fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, etc. and where he operated a soil lab.

William lives with his wife Vernie in the snow capped mountains of Northern Nevada.

Lloyd Nelson

World Renown BD Expert

Lloyd Nelson has been practicing the art of Biodynamic (BD) Agriculture for over twenty years. He is a BD preparation maker, builder, artist, farmer, arborist, BD educator & consultant. He is co-founder of Biodynamic Source – a Colorado based non-profit specializing in high potency BD preparations – and he owns and operates a Biodynamic spray, fertilizer and consultation service. He has worked with small and large scale farms, vineyards, and orchards to transition to sustainable Biodynamic land management and Demeter BD Certification.

Vern Cox, PhD

Educator

Vern Cox is married to Joyce Christensen and they have 8 children. He has 3 earned degrees, a BA in psychology, and both a Master’s degree and a Ph.D. in marriage and family therapy.

He has had a diverse and interesting career that started with the Bureau of Land Management, followed by a stint as a Learning Disabilities teacher, and finally a marriage and family therapist, working his way up to executive director of the High Country Counseling and Resource Centers that served two counties in Wyoming.

Dr. Cox served for several years on the board of a charter school. Dr. Cox remains heavily involved in his community and the home schooling movement.

He has extensive background in marriage and family counseling, having held a number of administrative positions during his first career. He holds a BA in Psychology and both a Masters and PhD in Marriage and Family Therapy. He lives with his wife and several married children on their multi-generation farm in Southern Utah.

Joseph Lofthouse

Educator

Joseph adopted the principles of landrace gardening in response to the harsh growing conditions in a high-altitude, short-season, desert garden. Instead of relying on expensive poisons, labor, and materials to coddle the plants, he encourages genetic diversity, cross-pollination, and survival of the fittest, allowing the plants to adapt themselves to the current and ever-changing ecosystem, thus simplifying gardening and seed saving. Joseph is the author of Landrace Gardening: Food Security Through Biodiversity and Promiscuous Pollination. Joseph loves eating, farming, swimming, hot-springs, sunbathing, bird-watching, running, yoga, leggings, kilts, playing guitar, singing, and living habitually barefoot.

Dan Brooks

Educator

Dan Brooks was born and raised in the Pacific Northwest. During his first career, he spent 20 years working in and managing high-end restaurants and golf courses including extensive banquet/special events services and ice sculptures.

For the past 23 years, Dan has been a successful entrepreneur and family business owner in Las Vegas. He and his wife have 4 children and 11 grandchildren. He serves as a trustee for The Center for American Legacy Studies.

Shanon Brooks, PhD

Director

Shanon Brooks is the director of The Center for American Legacy Studies, an institution dedicated to helping families embrace and incorporate the Five American Ideals; Georgics, Liber, Providence, Public Virtue, and Liberty into their lives and communities. America exists because of Americans. Americans are the beneficiaries of a peculiar culture and way of living.

Over the past 75 years, that culture and way of life have been lost. Restore that culture and Americans will rebuild America to once again be worthy of John Winthrop’s 1630 admonition, “For we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us.”

Brooks has been a leader in alternative higher education for over 30 years, and is the author of two books: AMERICAN: Killing the American Dream and A Thomas Jefferson Education for Teens.

Dr. Brooks is a veteran of military service in the United States Submarine Fleet and holds a Bachelor’s degree in business administration, a Master’s degree in education, and a Ph.D. in constitutional law.

He and his wife Julia reside on the 80-acre conference facility of The Center for American Legacy Studies.