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COLUMBUS, Ohio — A class action lawsuit filed Tuesday by eleven former students of retired social studies teacher Dennis Karmichael has drawn national attention to a quietly mounting crisis: Americans are losing pub trivia at historic rates, and experts say the public education system is to blame.
The plaintiffs, all of whom competed for six years as a team called The Quizzard of Oz at Fitzgerald’s Tap Room on Olentangy River Road, allege that Karmichael’s instruction directly caused $340 in lost winnings and a gift certificate to a restaurant that has since closed. Court filings cite the night of March 12, when team captain Brian Dolan answered “Sydney” to a final-round question about the capital of Australia with what witnesses described as “total, eighth-grade certainty.”
The filing also documents an April incident in which the team unanimously agreed that OPEC stands for “Oil Producing Exporting Counties,” [sic] a definition Karmichael wrote on the board in 1998 and which Dolan reproduced, on paper, word for word, including “Counties.”
“I didn’t hesitate,” Dolan said. “That’s the part that haunts me. Mr. Karmichael didn’t teach me the wrong answer. He taught me an answer that was wrong in multiple ways. And he taught me to be sure of it.”
The suit arrives amid growing evidence that the problem is national in scope. The Brennan Institute for Recreational Knowledge estimates that Americans forfeited $11.4 million in trivia winnings last year due to errors traceable to K-12 instruction, and reports that foreign-born players now win American pub trivia at nearly twice the rate of native-born competitors. Researchers attribute the gap to the U.S. naturalization exam, which requires new citizens to study American civics, while American-born players are required to study nothing.
“I memorized all twenty-seven amendments to become a citizen,” said Priya Raghunathan of Cleveland, whose team, Naturalized Selection, has won fourteen consecutive Tuesdays at a bar called The Drunken Framer. “My American teammates handle the questions about breakfast cereal mascots.”
In Washington, lawmakers have begun coalescing around a solution. A bill introduced Thursday by Rep. Chuck Grandy (R-Iowa) would require U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to remove from the naturalization exam any question with what the bill calls “recreational value,” including the branches of government, the causes of the Civil War, and anything involving a state capital.
“We looked at improving public education,” Grandy said. “We did look at it.”
Under the proposed law, applicants would instead be tested on material American-born players have mastered, such as discontinued Taco Bell menu items, sitcom theme song lyrics, and the phone numbers of local personal injury attorneys.
The Department of Education said in a statement that it was “aware of the filing” and that it “does not certify curriculum for barroom use.” The National Education Association called the lawsuit “an attack on teachers” and “a juvenile misunderstanding of ‘class action,’” then asked, separately, whether OPEC stood for “Oasis of Persian Energy Conglomerates.”
Karmichael, 71, who taught at Whetstone Middle School for thirty-four years, declined to comment through his attorney, who then commented extensively. “My client taught from the approved textbook,” said the attorney, Gail Furst. “If the textbook said Sydney, that’s a matter for the publisher. If the textbook said Canberra and my client said Sydney anyway, that’s a matter of academic freedom. If the textbook said a class action lawsuit was when a literal school class takes legal action…” she trailed off, shaking her head.
The Quizzard of Oz has continued competing during the proceedings, finishing fourth last Thursday behind three teams captained by Chinese immigrants.
The capital of Australia remains, allegedly, Canberra.
