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Why are 78% of all Americans unable to place Iraq on a map?
Question
#65291. Asked by author. (May 03 06 6:49 AM)
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zbeckabee
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Can't afford a map.
Can't afford an education.
Are not interested.
Are unaware it exists.
Iraq is a lousy vacation spot.
Most Americans don't realize Iraq is our 51st State.
The list probably goes on...and the answer would mostly be speculative.
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McGruff
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I haven't found the why, but the statistic came from a survey by the National Geographic Society.
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McGruff
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Never mind, frankie found it while I was being bounced offline.
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Flynn_17
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I would like to add to this a quote from the Simpsons.
"I took the children forty minutes to find Canada on the map"
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Baloo55th
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It's spreading - a 14 year old girl I was talking to couldn't identify France on an outline map she was holding, and even worse, couldn't identify Wales. This was in Liverpool, less than 20 miles from the border. Geography nowadays seems to be economic geography rather than physical geography, and as to where things are when you've studied their economic growth etc, who cares?
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Arpeggionist
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Yes, but in some places, these things are paramount. I live in a country surrounded by 5 nations who would not compromise on "a grain of sand" to quote Anwar Sadat. Physical geography in some places means everything. And the fact that most Americans couldn't spot Mexico or Iraq not only astounds and baffles me, but it worries me. Physical borders between nations are necessary sometimes (good fences make good neighbors).
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Arpeggionist
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Well, I'm not surprised people couldn't locate Israel. On any map of the world or globe Israel is generally far to small to be seen at a glance. Though I live here, I can hardly pinpoint the borders of this country on a world map, so why should I expect a person to if he believes Israel to be of mythical or religious significance... But, you'll find that if you show a satelite picture of the Earth at night and where you see lights on, you'll find that the greatest concentrations of light are in New York City, Paris and Gush Dan (or the Sharon plains on the Mediterranian shore - from Ashdod to Netantia, with Tel Aviv right in its center).
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kisstherainbow
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It was on an unlabled map, that's a huge difference. Also, 4 in 10 people does not equal 78% of Americans. When you see maps of Iraq on TV, it's always blown up so you never see the surrounding countries. I know I'd have to seriously study an unlabled map to figure out where Iraq is. Besides, some countries are so small that you don't really study them in geography. Also, most geography classes concentrate on a certain area of the world. I studied Eastern Asia extensively, so i don't know the middle east very well.
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kisstherainbow
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Eh, didn't mean to sound so defensive. The american education system does pretty much suck, but americans really aren't as stupid as everyone thinks.
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lanfranco
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Despite the claim of some that we Americans are all utterly ignorant (if that were really so, then we poor, benighted residents of the U.S. would all be living in abject poverty in sod huts), the truth is that many educational systems are defective. In the U.S., we no longer emphasize rote learning (of countries' names and locations and natural resources, for example), because we believe that this stifles "creativity." Other countries emphasize such learning, but at the expense of individual thought.
The truth is that both are necessary. We accept this in mathematics, where you have to learn how to add, subtract, divide and multiply before going on to quadratic equations, etcetera; but we don't necessarily realize that it might be a good idea to memorize the significant events of world history before you start to figure out how they relate and what the causes and effects might be. Or, perhaps, you need to get a grip on the rules of grammar and punctuation before you can effectively fool around with them.
The U.S. educational system really isn't bad. It's entirely free (in many countries, getting a "public" education requires paying prohibitive fees for books and uniforms and traveling long distances, which also costs), and every child is automatically entitled to an education. I sometimes get the impression that intelligent Americans believe that our educational just MUST be bad, because we have such a long-standing inferiority complex vis-a-vis Europe. But I've lived in Europe, and I can tell you that the schools I saw there weren't utterly superior. Far from it.
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Vinny_The_Hack
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I don't believe Iraq specifically or geography generally has anything to do with it. In fact, Americans have little to do with it.
1. People everywhere are ignorant.
2. Americans are just a little bit moreso than most.
Consider this:
The International Adult Literacy Survey found that Americans with less than nine years of education score worse than virtually all of the other countries.
The European Union leads the U.S. in the number of science and engineering graduates.
Europe surpassed the United States in the mid-1990s as the largest producer of scientific literature.
Foreign applications to U.S. grad schools declined 28 percent last year. Foreign student enrollment on all levels fell for the first time in three decades, but increased greatly in Europe and China.
Personally, I believe a lot of it stems from the fact that the U.S. is very wealthy and has been tops in many fields for a long time and people have gotten complacent.
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helenasykes
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I can beat the 14 year old that cannot locate Wales Baloo55th. I have a friend who is now 17 and as far as i am aware is still unable to locate England on a map of the world, she cannot locate any countries for that matter but she lives in England. Then in another geography lesson we used a map of the UK and she could not locate Huddersfield on this map, despite having lived here all her life. She was 16 at the time and just months away from taking her geography GCSE. Its pathetic.
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