Today, the part of Gbaji will be played by Nexa Contrary to my hair color, I'm not actually an idiot, but I'll go ahead and be honest here, I suck at geography more than mostly any subject. As far as states go, if it's not on the East Coast, and if it's not Texas, California, Washingon, Oregon, Hawaii, or Alaska, I probably don't know where it is for sure. I would tell you it's "In the middle somewhere", haha.
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GEOGRAPHY SURVEY
Thirty-three percent of respondents couldn't pinpoint Louisiana on a map.
I can do this, but only since Katrina made it such a popular map location on the news. Before that I probably could, but I would have had to think about it.
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Fewer than three in 10 think it important to know the locations of countries in the news and just 14 percent believe speaking another language is a necessary skill.
I guess it depends on what you're doing in life. Is it important for me to know the locations of other countries? Define important. I guess it would be good to know but I don't feel like I'm really lacking if I can't show you where exactly in the middle east Israel is. I would love to know another language, but do I think it's
necessary? Necessary is a strong word for it where I'm from.
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Two-thirds didn't know that the earthquake that killed 70,000 people in October 2005 occurred in Pakistan.
I probably did at the time it happened, but if you just asked me now, "What country had an earthquake in October of 2005 that killed 70,000 people" I'd probably draw a blank. Ok, well not RIGHT now because you just told me, but you know what I mean.
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Six in 10 could not find Iraq on a map of the Middle East.
I could point out roughly where it is, but that's about it.
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Forty-seven percent could not find the Indian subcontinent on a map of Asia.
Ok, continents I have down.
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Seven-five percent were unable to locate Israel on a map of the Middle East.
Again, so what?
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Nearly three-quarters incorrectly named English as the most widely spoken native language.
I know it's not English, but I couldn't tell you for sure what it is!
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Six in 10 did not know the border between North and South Korea is the most heavily fortified in the world.
I could make an educated guess at this, it makes sense, but it's not like I know that off the top of my head.
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Thirty percent thought the most heavily fortified border was between the United States and Mexico.
hahaha, ok, that's funny.
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"Taken together, these results suggest that young people in the United States ... are unprepared for an increasingly global future," said the study's final report. Far too many lack even the most basic skills for navigating the international economy or understanding the relationships among people and places that provide critical context for world events."
So I can't understand the relationship between Iran and Israel unless I can fill in a blank map? Unless you're in a job/field of study where this kind of thing is important, why should you know it beyond just general knowledge? I guess I'd like to be better at geography, but I focus on other things, things that pertain to my work and study. I'm guessing that someone who is great at geography might not be all that great and naming off statistics regarding the number of low income, first generation college students we have dropping out in their first year of post-secondary study...but I'm guessing it's not all that important to them if they're into international finance!
This whole "Americans are ****** at geography" thing has been brought up a few times now, and I really don't see the big deal. I find it more disturbing that Americans have huge misconceptions regarding what constitutes rape, what constitutes racism, why hitting your spouse is just as wrong as hitting anyone else, how many homeless people we have in our cities, how many kids don't have health insurance, etc,etc,etc. What is with this whole geography crack-down??
Nexa - who is supposed to be either working, or writing a paper.