"Greenville? Isn't it in North Carolina?" So spoke a student of AP US History on the return from Greenville to Charleston last weekend.
Where will this ignorance leave America, or South Carolina, for that matter? A friend has suggested that it results from the decline of memorization in education.
So when this student reads that Charleston is competing with Greenville for industry, will she think that we're competing with North Carolina?
Those in their sixties or over (or those who have gone through the rigorous geography course at the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown) can orient themselves reasonably well in the world. What will happen to the American experiment when all that's left are those who couldn't find Chicago on a map? who wonder why we have time zones and if it's earlier or later in London? can't understand why Japan would be concerned about China? Wonder if the inhabitants of Iran are Hindu? I could continue, but it's just too demoralizing.
Help!
3 comments:
But, there is a Greenville, NC. My grandfather was born there.
I know--but that's not where she had been!
I remember my final exam in 7th grade social studies at a downtown elementary school back in 1967. It was a real final exam, cumulative of the whole year's work and had nothing to do with anything remotely like PACT.
We had to take a blank copy of a world map showing only the outline of every country, name them and show the name of the capital of each. OK, I think the names were on a list, but the countries and capitals weren't matched. I seem to remember there were something like 400 countries and capitals, with correctly placed locations worth a quarter point each.
Fortunately the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia counted only as one country each back then, but East and West Germany were still listed separately. And their capitals: Moscow, Belgrade, East Berlin and Bonn. Not bad for 40 years later, eh?
Yes, memorization skills were combined with repetative use from a kind of "open map" game that was played on rainy days or as a winding down after a recess. (Yes, and schools still had recess, too.) One student was "it" until they couldn't find one and was replaced by the questioner. Each kid had to locate places on any of the pull down maps in the room (and there were at least a half dozen of them...thanks someone's previous dumster diving for old maps and new ones due to the PTA or some such group). I can remember that a search for Bali, Laos's Plain of Jars, the Blue Nile (as opposed to the White Nile) or Kamchutka Peninsula usually meant that a "smart" kid would have to sit down while a "normal" kid got the glory for bringing down a "map hog".
Could today's average 7th grader find with any confidence seven continents and at least five major oceans or seas? What about finding Patagonia, the Great Plains or the Russian Steppes [please forgive the spelling]...and knowing how they are similar? All learned in 7th grade...high school and college geography were to be an easy "A" for most of us as a result.
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