What an 8th Grade Education Used to Mean

Last night, I had a heated, yet dignified, discussion with my roommate about the use of a SmartBoard in a classroom. I was for them because they keep up with the world of technology that a student is being brought up in, and helps to keep them focused on the lesson at hand. She was against them because there are already elements in the 21st century classroom that fulfill the addition of technology in the classroom (i.e. projectors and computers). I explained to her that technology is making advances that need to be reflected in the classroom, otherwise, students lose interest. I brought up the innovative Dry-Erase board (that she was so adamant about), and how that wasn't always in the classroom.

Anyway, the point of that was, it made me think: what exactly was in a classroom 50 years ago? So I did a Google search and came across something totally irrelevant, yet relevant at the same time. It was a blog called Classroom as a Microcosm by Siobhan Curious. On it, he has a post called What an 8th Grade Education Used to Mean.

On the post, Curious had a copy of a final exam for 8th graders in 1895. I took a look at it and realized: I did not recognize half of the stuff that was there. Seriously... did YOU learn about "trigraphs" and "subvocals" in the 8th grade?? I know I didn't.

So after looking at all of that, I began to wonder: these 8th graders learned all of this WITHOUT the fancy technology we have today. Meanwhile, their final exam looks like a foreign language to us. So what are we doing wrong? Are we really so caught up in "new age-ness" that we don't have time to learn what we really need to know?

Your thoughts?