Last Updated on December 1, 2010
While flipping through the channels, I came across an episode of a game show I have never really watched:  Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?
It’s sort of like Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, minus the million-dollar top prize, with questions that any fifth grader should be able to answer.  The adult contestant on tonight’s episode was asked a simple true-or-false question:
The first official flag of the United States had 50 stars.
Granted, I’m probably expecting far too much from the average person, but should we really have to even think about this one?  Don’t we recall that there were 13 colonies that started things off?
The contestant was convinced that the first official flag had 50, but that the current one has 52, since we have 52 states.  I have no idea which two states exist in her alternate universe, by the way.  Then, in talking it out, she decided that the first official flag must have had 48, and that the current one has 50.  (The people of Puerto Rico must have been so excited there for a moment!)
After locking in her answer as false, host Jeff Foxworthy asked her if she really thought that the country had all 50 states right from the start.  She thought for a second and answered no, but that we had at least 48 states before an official flag would have been made.
“So you think we went without a flag for a couple hundred years?”
I’m not much of a Foxworthy fan, but I was definitely amused. He then showed the first official U.S. flag, which featured the 13 stars in a circle.
Something that a fifth grader is supposed to know.  Something that many adults apparently don’t care to know.
Is it any wonder our education system is in such need of repair?