Classic video alert!! Americans need help with their grammar too.
The following story about young Americans not knowing their geography made me recall the above classic video, in which a contestant struggles with the parts of speech. I couldn’t resist including it. Click on the image to play.
Many Younger Americans Can’t Find Louisiana on the Map
Despite the 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.
Americans between the ages of 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.
And then there’s this tidbit which I know you will enjoy:
Thirty percent thought the most heavily fortified border [in the world] was between the United States and Mexico.
So, what do we do about the state of education in America?
Public schools – proof that government monopolies are as bad, or worse, than private ones.
Of course this is bad, but I’d be curious to what the percentages were 10, 20, 30, 50 years ago. Its entirely possible that these percentages were always the same, or to paraphrase, there will always be a % of dumb or ingnorant people in this country.
Most shocking is 50.1% voted for George Bush.
With this apparent reduction in the capacity for higher learnin’, maybe Uncle Dave’s earlier story about reduced teen fertility is the good news of the day 😉
Ummm. Aren’t most maps labeled? Mine are.
Schools seem more fixated on political correctness and not offending any minority group, then actually teaching anything.
Um…what is the most heavily guarded border in the world then? My guess would be the North/South Korea border?
If not that, then it must be the Virgina/North Carolina border.
“So, what do we do about the state of education in America?”
Isn’t that the state above South Dakota?
Mike — glad to see you’re still fighting for the cause.
Edumacation be good in the USA.
For example we can all answer important questions like:
a) Name the two nations that the USA invaded because of their proven roles in the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
b) If we export 50 middle class jobs to China and India, and that results in lower costs for US corporations, how many equivalent pay Walmart jobs will that produce to replace the exported jobs?
c) Now for the hard math:
If you have a political system with two dominant parties, and the President was elected by a 52 – 48 margin, what would the margin be if the president enjoys a 32% approval rate overall, with the approval rate within the winning party being 70%. If you can’t do math, then lets simplify the question… does a 52% margin constitute a “mandate”?
ROFL!!!. He used *all* three of his assists on the $300 question and *still* got the most idiotically simple question wrong?! Ahahahaha…I haven’t laugh that hard in years…
So my U.S.-born wife was touring Europe with a Canadian friend she met along the way when the pair encountered another U.S.-born person. The third person learned there was a Canadian among them, and quickly asked, “Where is the state of Canada?”
#12, Canada is the second largest country in the world. There is about 32 million people living there, (including almost 25,000 illegal immigrants). When I moved to the US, one of the first questions I was asked is, “ Hey I met this guy from Canada once, I think his name is Bob, Ya know ‘im”
Only 25,000 illegal immigrants? Maybe we can send them some of ours.
Blocked by websense!
..it was verb, right? 🙁
My Dad and Mom said that when they were in high school, people didn’t know places outside the U.S., but knew there own country pretty well. Back then they taught geography and you had to learn the states and their capitals. You also had to know where the big rivers were as well.
The province of New Brunswick in Canada (I’d say its just north of Maine, but according to this article, still no one would know where it is) just completed some Grade 9 English-language testing – > not a single student – NOT ONE – had a strong grasp of English writing (say there’s a couple thousand Grade 9 students in NB) Unfortunately stupidity isn’t just reglagated to American high schools.
Bruce got-a-1510-on-his-SAT IV
#17, Bruce, I have been to New Brunswick many times and know several people quite well from there. Even the people with French as a first language are quite well spoken in English. I would have to say that the test must be flawed if 100% of the students failed it. So I checked it out and couldn’t find ANY reference to a test in English where not one student had a good grasp of English writing
Second if you would look on a map, New Brunswick is North-East of Maine, not North. That, though, is subjective, the same as the quality of English writing is subjective.