i always hear reports about how terrible americans are with geography. a cnn report tells us that only 23 percent of people between the ages of 18 and 24 can find iraq on a map. ok ok. iraq may be a tough one. but what are kids learning about geography in high schools? today was a real eye opener for me.
i never really understood how people could struggle with basics of geography. in elementary school we had to memorize the states in alphabetical order for the song "50 nifty united states", and the animaniacs helped us place capitals in those states with an equally catchy song. in 7th grade i had to memorize all the countries and capitals in europe. I have been forced to look at maps and find places my whole life. i guess they just dont stress that kind of information these days.
the students had an assignment to label every state and capital (with a star) and the national capital was to be marked with a star with 2 circles around it. 3 different students approached me and asked me if washington DC was the only national capital. 2 students asked me what the national capital was. and about 70% of the students (with maps in front of them) could not locate it. wha happened?
another student was asking about albuquerque. "Thats in new york, right?" he said while pointing to north dakota.
another student, quizzing another asked, "hey, whats the smallest state?"
"hawaii" he responded, but quickly caught his error with his infallible logic of "wait, that cant be right. my uncle lives there." you see, size is determined by the amount of uncles living in any given state. If there are no uncles there, you can be sure it has a higher probability of being a smaller state. in my case, arizona must be the largest state, as it contains 3 of my uncles. pennsylvania and texas are the second largest states, each with one uncle. the remaining 47 states are all tied for smallest state, all containing not a single uncle.
GEOGRAPHY!
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