[Chancellor]

Quote by: Muckraker And what exactly is the real world value of being able to locate countries on a map?

Well, since you asked...

The Nature, Unity and Value of Geography.

Cartographic Communication

http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=153...3E2.0.CO%3B2-7

Geographical Association - Campaigning for Geography

http://www.ttrb.ac.uk/viewArticle2.aspx?contentId=10789

How do young Americans stack up regarding geography? CNN.com - Study: Geography Greek to young Americans - May 2, 2006

I had to learn all the countries and capitols of the continent of Africa in 7th grade. I wish they would have instead taught me the dance steps to the Electric Slide because there have been about a dozen instances in my life when knowing the Electric Slide would have come in handy but knowing the countries and capitols in Africa has never come in handy. I've even played Trivial Pursuit about ten times in my life and yet never got hit with an Africa question. Subsequently, my current knowledge of the countries and capitols of Africa is severely limited even though at one time in my life I could accurately locate all of them.

Well, I suspect that what you had to learn was the capitals of those countries and not the capitols. There doesn't seem to be much value in learning all the government buildings (capitols) of a particular country - even our own.

Having a working knowledge of geography is of absolutely no value to most people. It is trivial knowledge and that is why we forget it all twenty years after we learned it in grade school. We remember how to tie our shoes because we do it every day. If we were required to recite all of the countries that start with the letter U every day then we would remember them as well.

Having a working knowledge of literature or of history is arguably of no value to most people either - yet these are considered part of a well-rounded education.

Just look at the show "Are you Smarter than a 5th Grader." The whole show is based off the concept that people of differing levels of intelligence don't remember some things they learned in 5th grade. My response to that is - Big Frickin' Deal.

Not that intelligence has anything to do with education.

All of that "idiot probing" is done purely for entertainment. And I also firmly believe that the statistics that have been cited are severely flawed. For instance, the statistic that 50% of adult Americans are not literate is idiotic. Many Americans are fully literate in their native languages and since the United States is the destination of most of the world's immigrants it is pretty inaccurate to state that Americans are illiterate when they are simply not literate in the most commonly used language of the country.

The only language that matters in America is American English. But I agree that the 50 percent figure is questionable. Here's what may be a more accurate picture: http://www.proliteracy.org/downloads...2010-25-04.pdf and How Literate are Americans? and Illiterate America - Newsweek

Now here's something that might be a bit scary: Why Don't Americans Care?