Surveys of Americans Show: Arab Numerals/Latin Letters –– Bad

AROUND THE BLOCK

I learned…

I learned recently that a poll taken by CivicScience, Inc. which asked 3,200 Americans, “Should schools in America teach Arabic numerals as part of their curriculum,” 56% of those surveyed answered “No,” 29% answered “Yes,” and 19% had “No Opinion.”

Subsequent to the initial publication of the survey, and aware that the majority of Americans are against Arabic numerals, CivicScience republished their findings in a way that most Americans would approve of:

“CivicScience, Inc recently asked MMMCC Americans, 'Should schools in America teach Arabic numerals as part of their curriculum.'” The results of the poll:

                        LVI%: “No”

                        XXIX%: “Yes”

                        XIX%: “No Opinion”

CivicScience, curious about the results, went back to some of the respondents who answered no to get a better insight into the reason for their answer. Here are some respondent replies: 

• “Do you want your kids to use the same numerals that Arabs use? I don’t.”
• “Letting some of them into our country is bad enough…now our kids have to use their numerals as well?”
• “What are numerals, anyway?”

While the genesis of CivicScience’s survey was to get more general information from parents about how they feel about math instruction, given the surprising findings, the company decided that perhaps they should do a second survey about English instruction. In this second poll, they put the following question to respondents, “Should schools in America teach the Latin alphabet as part of their curriculum.” The results, 61%: “No,” 23%:  “Yes,” 16%:  “No Opinion”

Again, curious about the results, CivicScience followed up with a few of the participants. 

• “I want my kids to learn the good, old American alphabet. None of that foreign stuff for me or my kids.”
• “The Latin alphabet? I thought Trump’s wall was supposed to keep out those Latins. 
• “I don’t think Americans should use Latin anything. If those Frisco people want to use Latin, let them…they’re not real Americans anyway.

America #1. Oops, I mean Америки #I.