USA on the Rest of the World

In my school we had to know all the countries in the world, their flags, their geographical location and capital cities by the time we were 15 years old I think. Certainly I've forgotten a fair number of them, the brain simply can't retain such information when it's only used once or twice in your lifetime but I can at least remember what CONTINENT countries are on and their general location.

I can't believe that Americans wouldn't know where Australia is, their possibly strongest ally and friend in world politics. Now I'm used to New Zealand being forgotten since we're that tiny country in the south Pacific with bugger all people and hobbits - but I'd at least hope our bigger brother would be known.

Then again the USA has more often than not been an inwards focused country, I couldn't name half the states in the USA, let alone their capitals, but I can find their major cities (New York, Washington, Los Angeles etc.) I guess because we don't have 'states' in New Zealand so we don't consider them to be important.

Considering how in New Zealand it's often the dropouts who would join the military as grunts and even they aren't half as geographically stupid as some of those examples shown in the video, I worry about the state of the US Military...

 

New Zealand always drops off the edge of world maps or is covered up by the legend so it's not surprising if US kids don't know where it is.

But, like Abomination, I was certainly taught where just about every country was before I was about 12. Unfortunately, lots of them have changed since then so my education is probably terribly out of date.

 

That's because earth is flat.

 

At least New Zealand is called New Zealand. On some foreign news stations such as CNN, N.Ireland is called 'Ireland'. Annoying terms:

"Belfast, Ireland" or
"Derry/Londonderry, Ireland"

 

Yeah, you must be pretty annoyed when nobody understands what Northern Ireland is. I bet it happens all the time, and from respectable sources too.

Although New Zealand does often get called Australia.

 

Well a month ago or so Finland was called a former Soviet sattelite in a US congress memo.

 

But you all were commies. At least, Finland is sufficiently close to Russia, in the east and snowy enough to justify the suspicion.

Not to mention the obvious wodka affinity. Now that can't be an accident. Just like the Russians! *HINT*
Now Chev, before you start about Poles being lovers of wodka, too, Poland was a Soviet satellite.

 

I learned geography in public school. But that was a long time ago - I was in college in 1970.

My impression is that many Americans really are pretty clueless about geography. I remember being told huffily by an account representative on the phone that they only served the United States and couldn't help me, because I was in Vermont.

Haven't tried them from Tennessee.

 

I once stopped in Kingman, Arizona and when I told someone there I was from New Zealand, they asked if that was near Minnesota.

 

You're quite the traveler to have been to Kingman, Arizona. Although most people won't admit to having been there....

When I was graduating from college the big news was that 85% of college graduates could point out where Viet Nam was on a map (the war had been over ten years or so), 75% didn't know it was on the Asian continent, and 50% could tell you which side we supported (some even chose east or west).

Geography is NOT a strength of the US populace.

 

Kingman, Arizona is a convenient stopping point after Phoenix when you are travelling from one end of the USA to the other. For me, it was the classic middle of nowhere American town - that still had a K-Mart and every single major fast food chain outlet.

 

Phoenix to Las Vegas leg I take it. Hopefully it was not July or August....

 

Yep - Phoenix to Las Vegas leg. Second day of journey from Los Angeles to New York. It was February.

 

I knew that but I didn't know it was that serious. So I think sending this classic is an obligation for me to show the average American understanding of the world geography.

 

I asked my wife about this last night. She teaches 5th grade, so I wanted to see if they do anything regarding world georgraphy. As it turns out, not only do they not do world georgraphy, they don't even do US geography anymore. When she started teaching seven years ago, they still did some geography on the 50 states, but now, since the No Child Left Behind Act, things that are not tested for tend to get short shrift, geography being among them.

And that is my wife's (along with most other teachers) biggest complaint about the No Child Left Behind Act. Even if it were properly funded and sensibly implemented, there is still a major problem with the program. That being, that the tests you are required to administer to students to show progress focuses on math, reading comprehension, and science. As you can see, things like writing, social studies, history, and geography are excluded from the list. Therefore, since funding for school is closely linked to performance on these tests, there is pressure on teachers to sink as much time as they can on tested subjects, and spend significantly less time on subjects that are not tested. The end result is that my wife thinks she is actually teaching students less now than she was before.

Another reason that they got rid of geography was that they don't do graphing in math class anymore either. Once you figure out how to graph lines and find points, reading a map becomes much easier. But they don't test graphing skills on the tests, so they don't teach that either. Between lunch, recess, and a daily dose of either music, art, or physical education, the average elementary school student only has about 4 hours of classroom instruction per day. And there simply isn't enough time for things like geography.

 

I wouldn't judge Americans on a youtube video clip. The Sun newspaper (which is the most popular) makes the British look like idiots with its racist and sexist content.

A little amusing info on The Sun:

http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/josh_freedman_berthoud/2007/01/no_****_no_racism_are_you_alri.html

 

Cúchulain, i think the the boards cencuring broke your link

 

oops, replace the *'s with 't i t s'