Geographically Illiterate

Railroad

Railroad

Routinely Derailed
The Washington Times has a front-page story entitled, "Lost generation can't find states with maps or wits." It says that "despite wall-to-wall coverage of the damage from Hurricane Katrina, nearly one-third of young Americans recently polled couldn't locate Louisiana on a map and nearly half were unable to identify Mississippi." The article goes on to say that "Americans between 18 and 24 fared even worse with foreign locations: six in 10 couldn't find Iraq, according to a Roper poll conducted for National Geographic."

Not a big worry, but a sad indicator regarding the education that has apparently eluded many folks of college age and older.
 
MMDad

MMDad

Lem Putt
Railroad said:
The Washington Times has a front-page story entitled, "Lost generation can't find states with maps or wits." It says that "despite wall-to-wall coverage of the damage from Hurricane Katrina, nearly one-third of young Americans recently polled couldn't locate Louisiana on a map and nearly half were unable to identify Mississippi." The article goes on to say that "Americans between 18 and 24 fared even worse with foreign locations: six in 10 couldn't find Iraq, according to a Roper poll conducted for National Geographic."

Not a big worry, but a sad indicator regarding the education that has apparently eluded many folks of college age and older.
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My brother in law teaches histoery in Delaware. Every year, the first assignment he has is to take a blank map and label the states. He may have one kid get all 50 correct. About 30% can't even find the state they live in.
 
baileydog

baileydog

I wanna be a SMIB
MMDad said:
My brother in law teaches histoery in Delaware. Every year, the first assignment he has is to take a blank map and label the states. He may have one kid get all 50 correct. About 30% can't even find the state they live in.
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This is so sad. How can someone admit that they are this stupid. The article said so many people couldnt even find Louisiana. With all that happened, how can you not know where it is? :dork: :shortbus: :loser: I think that about cover it.
 
SamSpade

SamSpade

Well-Known Member
baileydog said:
This is so sad. How can someone admit that they are this stupid. The article said so many people couldnt even find Louisiana. With all that happened, how can you not know where it is? :dork: :shortbus: :loser: I think that about cover it.
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They can't FIND it - but they know it's Bush's fault.

What's weird about this is, I'm sure I've been hearing about this ignorance about geography for over 25 years - the old story about kids who can't locate THE UNITED STATES on a world map and 25% of them pointing to *Brazil*. When I first heard about this in the 80's, I asked my (college-educated) roommates how many people lived in the U.S. - how many on the planet - what are the most populous nations - and so on. None of them knew. I even asked one roommate to name every town that bordered on the one we were living in (in New England, counties are irrelevant - everything's broken down by towns). He couldn't name them - and he'd grown up in that town.

Is it just geography, and simple demographic type stuff? These guys weren't right about the US population within 200 million.
 
Railroad

Railroad

Routinely Derailed
SamSpade said:
They can't FIND it - but they know it's Bush's fault.

What's weird about this is, I'm sure I've been hearing about this ignorance about geography for over 25 years - the old story about kids who can't locate THE UNITED STATES on a world map and 25% of them pointing to *Brazil*. When I first heard about this in the 80's, I asked my (college-educated) roommates how many people lived in the U.S. - how many on the planet - what are the most populous nations - and so on. None of them knew. I even asked one roommate to name every town that bordered on the one we were living in (in New England, counties are irrelevant - everything's broken down by towns). He couldn't name them - and he'd grown up in that town.

Is it just geography, and simple demographic type stuff? These guys weren't right about the US population within 200 million.
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I'll admit that I'm not the greatest at these things myself, but the BASICS, for crying out loud, should be as commonly well-learned as addition and subtraction! (OOPS, we have calculators now, doing the brainwork might be psychologically harmful)
 
Tonio

Tonio

Asperger's Poster Child
My kids aren't even school age yet and we're teaching them geography. Partly because I'm a huge map geek, and partly because we believe in the importance of the subject. The kids have a US map wooden puzzle and a US map poster. We show them the state where they live, the states they've visited, and the states where their out-of-town relatives live.
 
SamSpade

SamSpade

Well-Known Member
Tonio said:
My kids aren't even school age yet and we're teaching them geography. Partly because I'm a huge map geek, and partly because we believe in the importance of the subject. The kids have a US map wooden puzzle and a US map poster. We show them the state where they live, the states they've visited, and the states where their out-of-town relatives live.
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See, now we had puzzles like that, too. At the age of 10, I could identify almost any state just by its OUTLINE (still have a problem with Wyoming and Colorado).
 
Toxick

Toxick

Splat
Railroad said:
It says that "despite wall-to-wall coverage of the damage from Hurricane Katrina, nearly one-third of young Americans recently polled couldn't locate Louisiana on a map
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I'm getting a mental image.

It's a bunch of geographically illiterate kids, scratching their heads while unsuccessfully searching for N'Orleans on a map. They step aside, as the next kid in line looks, and begins to scratch his head.

The teacher points out N'Orleans.


One of the kids goes, "THAT's New Orleans, right there?"

Teacher: "Yes, there."

"THERE?"

"Yes."

"Right next to that humongous body of water"

"Yes, that's it."

"And the city is BELOW sea level?"

"Uh.. yeah"



"And they're blaming BUSH because the city was destroyed by flood?"

"Well..."



"We may not be able to find Lousiana on a map, but at least we're not THAT ####ing stupid!"

All the kids in the group nod.
 
vraiblonde

vraiblonde

Board Mommy
PREMO Member
Patron
I could place all 50 states but I'm not sure I could pick out Iraq on a map. European countries I could probably do - start at Great Britain and work your way around. But in the Middle East I could probably only correctly label Israel. Maybe Kuwait. And, duh, if I could label Kuwait, I could find Iraq.

Never mind... :blushing:
 
Railroad

Railroad

Routinely Derailed
Toxick said:
I'm getting a mental image.

It's a bunch of geographically illiterate kids, scratching their heads while unsuccessfully searching for N'Orleans on a map. They step aside, as the next kid in line looks, and begins to scratch his head.

The teacher points out N'Orleans.


One of the kids goes, "THAT's New Orleans, right there?"

Teacher: "Yes, there."

"THERE?"

"Yes."

"Right next to that humongous body of water"

"Yes, that's it."

"And the city is BELOW sea level?"

"Uh.. yeah"



"And they're blaming BUSH because the city was destroyed by flood?"

"Well..."



"We may not be able to find Lousiana on a map, but at least we're not THAT ####ing stupid!"

All the kids in the group nod.
Click to expand...

:lmao: :killingme Priceless!
 
oldman

oldman

Lobster Land
I learned the U.S. from a puzzle and grade school, then along came Alaska and Hawaii. I became a stamp collector and learned of foreign lands only to very many of the countries I knew change their names. Then I joined the Navy and visited many countries around the world only to end up in Maryland to just not give a hoot. Iran, well that's in the mid-east and that's really all I need to know because I'm certainly not planning on visiting it. I'm pretty sure I can still point out the U.S. states but I'm not at all sure about the rest of the world. Besides isn't that what Al Gore invented the internet for, so we could Google and have maps appear?
 
SamSpade

SamSpade

Well-Known Member
Larry Gude said:
...is a 40

I like how the give you multiple tries so you can get a little credit for a least having a clue while weighting heavier for actually knowing.
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Got a 76. Those former Soviet republics were the hardest.
 
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