Young Americans Geographically Illiterate

I got two wrong in the questionnaire, the exports one and the CSI one.

 

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I know all the countries in Africa and where to find them but I don't know American state capitals and where Iraq is.

Does that justify any conclusion? No.

 

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I didn't get the CSI question... fair enough... but I also missed the 'largest exporter question'. Should have been obvious if I'd stoped to think about Coca-cola, Intel and such stuff. I have so much chinese-made stuff - but it's cheap and the question was about value!

 

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Huh. I thought that video was too good to be true. Read the thing running at the bottom. CNNN? "Difference between flat white and latte discussed on coffee date"?

Oh well.

 

yeah, CNNN is a fake news program. funny, but I would not base your America hating on if you don't want to look like a dumbass.

 

Missed the Mississippi and immigrants questions too.

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Missed CSI question... no surprise and no big deal.
But missed population growth due to immigration as well.

:m: Oh the shame.

 

:m: Oh the paranoia.

 

I know where every US state is and can name all of them if I think through the map. I probably know most of the capitals of the states as well. And I know where most of the world's countries are. With the rest of them, I at least know which continent it's on, and in which region thereof.

And I'm American. Imagine that.

 

yeah the only one i didnt get was the immigration growth, i misread the question and put 5%

 

Uh huh...

Of course, if you dare propose stripping people of their right to vote (or at the very least, require testing), you're immediately scorned.

 

Not like anyone votes anyway.

 

I think it's a bit because the USA is such a huge country - you often learn the things that are close too you.

I mean, if I was given a map on europe (without any names on countries, capitols, etc.) I would be able to write down every country and it's capitol.

If I was, on the other hand, given a map over the USA I would probably not be able to write down more than 50% of the states.

It feels quite irrelevant to know every state in USA, I guess that's a bit how the americans feels about europe. "Why know all the countries - at least I know where europe is."

 

Yeah, that's part of it, even though most Americans still suck at geography, period.

Considering Europe has what, 46 countries in it smaller than the size of our states, and we have more states than they do countries, we have a lot more to learn. Now if someone from Europe is able to name all their countries and capitols in the EU as well as all of the U.S. states and capitols, THEN I'll be impressed and they'll have the right to call us geographical idiots, even though I don't deny it.

This is why I'm not impressed when some people from the EU brag about how much they know internationally what's going on in the news being able to list off all the international countries, which is mainly just the EU, when their countries are so tiny. Their international news is the size of our national news.

Having someone from France brag about what they know about their bordering neighbors is like me bragging about me knowing what's going on in Oregon, Nevada, or Arizona. And their real neighbors, someone like Africa would be akin to us and Mexico. EU is basically a buncha states now so claiming they know a lot about the EU no longer counts as international knowledge.

- N

 

typical american ignorance and arrogance. We do not confine our geographical knowledge to Europe. And the US is not the center of the world.And European countries are not like states. In fact, from now on we will demand you know all states of all European countries.

 

why does everyone jump in the "I hate America" bandwagon so easily?

typical European smug, holier than thou, attitude.

its can go both ways. my comment is just as valid as yours.

why all the hostilities? is america bashing so much fun that we have to have a flame war with no real discussion? lets talk about something with a bit more substance.

 

Something I've noticed over the last month or so is that spurious is blindly anti-American. He is comparable to Brian Foley in his discontent with America, although thankfully he doesn't create as many threads.

This is a non-issue. I took the test, and the wrong answers the students gave were quite reasonable. For example the question asking what is the most spoken native language in the world. It is quite obvious that English is spoken and taught all over the world (it is the official language of commerce). But the key word in the question was "Native", and that's why the kids got it wrong. Their failure to link current events with the countries they took place in or not being able to pick out countries on a map is not a big deal. I would only consider it a big deal if the people tested didn't know what "Iraq" was.

 

Honestly, how are kids supposed to know about all these things if they're not taught about them? My guess is they're not going to go out of their way to figure out this stuff, or study a map of the globe and figure out which countries go where. I don't know the American curriculim and stuff kids learn, but that's most likely why they don't know.

 

Yeah it is. We're the New Rome. When the US economy sneezes, the rest of the world catches a cold.

We're kind of a big deal.

 

People in opther country also learn about their own countries, we also learn international geography. We also learn about america (not every state but some) . We all live in our own countries and are not simply europeans.