[url=http://www.canada.com/news/story.asp?id=%7BD46FE7B3-09E2-4F0D-ACEA-877F5A79290E%7D]
I have heard similar things before, but I never really believed in it. I don’t remember studying much geography so I don’t see why Swedes should have almost twice as many points on average. I suppose there might be political reasons behind the survey though. It doesn’t seem very likely that only 25% (of the Americans) would know the approximate size of the US population.
US population, judging from the last census, is past 250 million and creeping up toward 300 million in a decade or so. Demographic trends are actually pointing to potentially half a billion US citizens in 30-40 years, which is staggering.
This is a worrisome development for Europe, whose birth rate has actually stagnated while America’s has taken off. Coupled with Europe’s resistance to immigration (not made any easier after 9/11), it’s most likely that the combined European population will be dwarfed by America’s in a few decades. For those who hope to turn the EU into America’s rival, this is a worrisome figure, because the combined European GDP can outstrip the U.S., but only due to the fact that they outnumber us by about 50 million right now. But if America were to outnumber Europe by 100-200 million people, Europe would find itself in a world dominated by U.S. and China (assuming the China juggernaught actually does happen). Also, worrisome to Europe, is that their cradle-to-grave welfare systems were always built on the fact that there are at least two workers paying for each retiree. But with stagnant population growth and the baby boom quickly retiring, most European nations are going to hit a crisis point when they simply run out of money to pay for the health care and other needs of its senior citizens. There won’t be enough young people in the workforce to foot the bill. It’s like our looming Social Security crisis, but on a much worse scale because the social system handles everything over there with a population with a much lower retirement age than ours.
I can also point to where Afghanistan and Iraq are on the map.
See. If I had my druthers, every school kid in America would actually have to read shit like The Economist. And they would like it!
Sweden wipes the floor with us because of mandated national standards. You wouldn’t believe how bad southern high schools are, in general.
I dunno about southern high schools, but urban schools in general are horrible in the US, especially in poor neighborhoods. In NYC, classes are held in bathrooms because of decaying physical plant, books can’t be purchased for all students, and teachers are paid miserable salaries and are mostly as a result unqualified for their positions. No wonder kids are totally uneducated.
It is easy to say “don’t throw money at the problem” but the fact is our public school system is horribly underfunded, and under a Republican administration it will only get worse. And let’s not talk about private school credits for families who are barely able to make ends meet; those credits will not go far enough towards tuition to be worthwhile…
According to this: http://nationalgeographic.ibs.aol.com/geosurvey/templates/answer_17_17_1.html
29% of Americans weren’t able to locate the Pacific Ocean on a map. But 41% of Swedes couldn’t either. So Sweden has some work to do as well. I mean, not being able to differentiate between Iran and Afghanistan on an unlabeled map is one thing, but, for chrissake, the Pacific Ocean?
And according to that link, 16% of Japanese couldn’t identify the Pacific Ocean, and they pretty much live IN IT.
“And according to that link, 16% of Japanese couldn’t identify the Pacific Ocean, and they pretty much live IN IT.”
Yeah, well, according to the CNN story on this survey, 11% of Americans couldn’t identify the United States. And they do live in it.
I mean, seriously: Americans must see something with the outline of the United States like five times a week. I can’t believe 11% of the students in this country couldn’t identify it on a map. It’s not like it doesn’t have a distinctive shape. Jesus Christ.
Hey, hey. I don’t need no fancy book learnin’. I can count to. 1,2,4,5,6. See.
All books is good for is hidin’ your money or your guns.
Colleges is for sissies.
It also does not help when there are crooked officials running the city and county school systems. A couple million in ‘misplaced’ funds could buy a lotta toilet paper. This is the case in Birmingham and Jefferson County (The county which contains B’ham and surrounding areas.)
The wealthy and well-managed city school systems in the affluent suburbs of Birmingham are doing juuuuuust fine.
What I really want to know is if Bush2 could have found Iraq before he became President of the US.
I don’t know about the Birmingham situation, but I do know that a lot of the time these kinds of errors happen because districts can’t afford to hire decent administrators (ie. it’s good people trying hard, but they don’t have the training/knowledge to make this work). There are instances of out and out corruption, but lack of expertise is more common (one could say incompetence, but that’s a little harsh).
I’ve done a lot of IT-related work with districts, and if they can only afford to pay $50k to the administrator responsible for two dozen campuses and the wide area network, no wonder the administrator doesn’t have time to shop around for good prices…
ASJunk
Sweden is a bad example of a European education. When everyone was guaranteed a job, before the government’s toning down of socialist policy about 6 years ago, students were totally blowing off school.
I know from experience that Poland and Germany are far better examples.
Which makes me wonder if National Geographic interviewed people who live in caves and log cabins in deepest Montana so that their survey would create a sensation. Could also be that 11% of Americans like to have fun when taking a survey.
I think it is a dose of both: poor administration and misspent funds (vacation bills, huge cell phone bills, ‘office’ furniture, missing money that still, after 2 years, cannot be found)
Did they offer the kids something if they got the right answers? If I was in the survey when I was in high school I would have said the wrong answers just to screw around. And look who funded the test? The national GEOGRAPHIC society. Of course they slant the answers so more money gets spent on geography aids - SOLD BY THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC SOCIETY!!
Ten bucks the national beer drinking society can come up with a survey that shows people should drink more beer.
Chet
Maybe it’s a “only know what’s nearby” thing. Still, how on earth do you miss your OWN COUNTRY?
He probably can’t even now. That’s why the man has a staff. He’s just the big idea guy.
Although I think everyone got the US right, very few of my 300-level history class could identify other countries on the surprise world map quiz. Many confused France and England, and several couldn’t find China or Australia. Most got Italy right…but only because Italy looks like a boot. The southern hemisphere was usually left blank.
Sadly, most of them were education majors who have been teaching children for years now.
I’m poor at identifying nations of central Africa and the island nations of the south Pacific. I think it’s because I don’t believe that the going-ons in those countries affect me.
See? The EU could really get some publicity if they reassigned national borders to make countries look like things!