Okay, it’s time for me to rant about
geography again.
Every so often I’m astounded by the
geographic ignorance of the people in this country. Now, I realize
most people don’t care, and that I probably do because I minored in
the subject in college, but I came across two scary statistics while
reading news sites this past weekend, and they just blew my mind.
The first statistic? Despite the fact
that we’ve been engaged in a wars in these particular country (in
one case for 18 years now), 63 percent of young Americans could NOT
locate Iraq or Afghanistan on a world map. They had no idea that you
go to the Mediterranean Sea, turn right, and go a couple of countries
in.
Of course, that would pre-suppose that
they knew where the Mediterranean Sea is.
The other statistic might even be
scarier...percent of ALL Americans can’t locate New York state on a
map. That means HALF of all Americans, despite knowing of the state,
couldn’t point to where the Empire State Building sits, or where
Long Island juts out into the Atlantic.
Don’t you think it says something
about Americans when we don’t know where world hot spots are? I
mean, how can we as a country care about things like the past tragedy
of mass starvation and mass death in Darfur when most of us don’t
even know where it is? I guess it’s just a little disappointing
that we as a people don’t seem to be aware that we’re not just
Americans. We’re humans sharing a planet with many different
people and many different countries, and in that sense, don’t you
think we SHOULD have some knowledge of our neighbors?
(Darfur, by the way, is in the Sudan.
In Africa. PLEASE tell me you know where Africa is.)
Now like I said, maybe I’m just a
little sensitive to this mass ignorance because it’s something
about which I’ve always had an interest. That interest, by the
way, started from the time I was 4 years old and my mom read to me
from Rand McNally’s World Atlas. I, apparently, was disappointed
that I couldn’t go to school with the other kids, so she decided to
let me learn at home. And it’s an education that’s stayed with
me to this day.
So thanks, Mom, for opening my eyes to
the fact that there’s an entire world out there, filled with
different people, different customs, and different problems. It’s
an education that I would hope ALL kids could get some day.
And then we wouldn't have to see
statistics like the ones that blew my mind again.
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