Reply #10: My little brother just started college after 4 years in the Navy. He is now working on his

[nealmhughes]

first research paper. We went to the library together and I taught him how to use tertiary, secondary and primary sources and how to differentiate them and then we went thru the databases. He didn't know they existed, thinking they were merely a "fancy Google."
We spent four non-stop hours then took a beer and burger break with a game of pool, then back until the library closed. I had told the reference librarian I was giving him an information literacy lesson as he had not been exposed to anything approaching it in high school.
As we left, I thanked her for not shusshing us, and she said, "I'm a catagloguer, and love for a reference librarian to be at the desk, thank you for making my job easy tonight!" We had a long discussion on critical thinking, teaching from a book and not emphasizing that one book is merely that: one book. Recite from memory, learn to stand in line, eat what is offered, team sports instead of individualized Aconcentration in physical education, etc.
When I told her I had "A" students in high school who entered college not knowing that Israel had been proclaimed in 1948 and was "that part of the world where Eurasia and Africa meet above the Sinai Peninsula" they were astonished, thinking that Israel was in Europe!
As an academic librarian, I deal with the consequences of having to teach what should have been learned by Grade 8 or so: academic papers do not start with the words "I think." "They was" is not acceptable, and copying and pasting from a website get an F.
12 years of 7 hours a day, and all they get is learning to conjugate "haber" in all tenses if lucky and no idea of what i squared is.
The most expensive baby sitting in the world.