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I caught this topic on talk radio this evening on the commute home.  
 I went through the US educational system and I can damn well find Afghanastan on a map!  Everyone I went to school with should very well be alble to do it as well.  If they could not then they are the ones we find useful to wash public bathrooms, mow lawns, and bag groceries, respectable, needed jobs.   Ramble, Ramble, Ramble.
What is everyone elses take?

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I remember my ninth grade history class. Our teacher each gave us the name of a place, and we had to go to the board and point it out. One kid had Africa as his place, and did not know where it was. Maybe we are the most innovative because we have a larger pool to draw people from, and therefore have more intelligent people than these other nations.  The largest country in Europe is Russia, and we outnumber them 2 to 1.
 

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I think our schools need more money and more qualified teachers.  Some of the teachers I've met over the years are total retards.  Sorry to be blunt, but it's true.

I am not impressed with the lackadaisical attitude people have about education.  It appears that in high school, and to a lesser extent, junior high, that it is more important to be popular than to be educated.  That might be where the problem comes from too.
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You are right, for many people it is more important to be popular than smart or studious in junior high/high school. Nobody wanted to get picked on or laughed at or teased. And nobody wanted to be the last person picked when sports were played in PE. High school, for me, was a time to learn about relationships and develop self esteam. Books and learning is important, but to someone who is 17 so is getting a date. I bet if there was a way to make school a more nurturing environment, with less teasing, not only would you have better students, but less violence. But that requires good teachers, and you already commented on that.

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I remember my ninth grade history class. Our teacher each gave us the name of a place, and we had to go to the board and point it out. One kid had Africa as his place, and did not know where it was. Maybe we are the most innovative because we have a larger pool to draw people from, and therefore have more intelligent people than these other nations.  The largest country in Europe is Russia, and we outnumber them 2 to 1.
 
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But that requires good teachers, and you already commented on that.
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I had great teachers.  I also had bad ones.  It was the great teachers that helped me become the smartypants I am today.  That and my mother threatened to beat the snot out of me if I got anything less than an A- :)  So I did the minimal amount of work to maintain an A- average throughout high school :D

I'm all about the minimal knowledge test one of you suggested.  I believe those tests were implemented right after I graduated from high school and that's when they started to notice that students these days are dumber than they were 50 years ago...school-knowledge-wise, that is.

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As an honor roll student who has never had any trouble finding anything on a map, I say:  Who cares?  Geography is boring and always has been.
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With all due respect, Kenny - that's bollocks.  We're living in an increasingly global society, and not to know where anywhere else on the planet actually is, is an insane level of insularity.

{$rant+}
To put it into perspective, you're expecting your leaders (who you elect) to do all your thinking for you in international affairs, yet you have no yardstick to measure whether they're actually up to the job.  It's not about geography alone: it's the foundation of democracy - if you have an electorate who don't even know where they are on the map, is it any wonder you end up with a leader who will declare war on a country without even knowing where it is?
{$rant-}

Phil

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I'll have to disagree with the "smartest" part since that's already been proven wrong time and time again, but, much like Rome, we are the strongest because of our military and because of war, we are also the most innovative and wealthiest country in the world - even though our economy is running trillions in the red.
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Sadly, a huge chunk of this "innovation" and "wealth" comes from the hard work of immigrants from places like Japan and India, because CEOs and hiring groups of major companies seem to have lost confidence in indigenous Americans :-/

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As an honor roll student who has never had any trouble finding anything on a map, I say:  Who cares?  Geography is boring and always has been.  
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I don't agree with this I always found geography interesting.

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Learning to BS is one of the most valuable skills you can learn in school

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I do agree with this, I am currently "BSing" my way thorugh a five page term paper on Bipolar disorder.  

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Being a nerd will probably not pay off; you'll end up with a crappy job doing software while the jocks will go into management and end up as your boss.  If you had a really, really good time in high school, expect to have a miserable rest of your life.


sorry it's been one of those days
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What kind of highschool did you go to where the Jocks became managers of software companies. That takes intellect to manage people and projects. The Jocks in my highschool were barely literate. It is worthwhile to admit that a few of these boneheads recieved athletic scholarships to schools that others with better grades could not get into, and not just a few tenth of a point on the GPA, but a full letter and more. I guess what Michigan and USC really needed was a few good linesmans.

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Sadly, a huge chunk of this "innovation" and "wealth" comes from the hard work of immigrants from places like Japan and India, because CEOs and hiring groups of major companies seem to have lost confidence in indigenous Americans :-/
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I'm not sure what the hell I was on when I wrote that.
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I like your photo  ;D

Who is the lady?

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Okay, I only missed two. I guess I am dumber than Screwball and TV9, but smarter than most of the American population... ;) The first 5 or so questions seemed to me to not have much in common with "geography" as I classify it. Now as for finding all the countries on a map -- I could do that when I was 10.... ::)
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Agreed, most of the 1st dozen questiions were more cultural anthropology and current events.  I got all the "find the country on the map" questions easier than the others but scored well, the only one I missed was the religion wih the most followers and I knew that Islam is close to Christianity.


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I missed that one too, also putting Islam, altho' I had a feeling I was wrong when I clicked the button. I also missed the population of the U.S.; I really thought we had a billion... :-/

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...How could people have missed those questions!?
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I agree,  I just took it online and got 100%.  


When I was a freshman in HS, we had to know all the states in the USA, and all the countries in S. America, Africa, and the Middle East.  Basically, we would each get a blank map of the region, and we had to fill in all the countries/states.  We could take the tests whenever we felt we were ready, as long as it was done before the end of the year.  We had 2 chances to complete each map.  If you got them all correct, you got an A, if you missed 1 or more, you got an F.  Plain and simple.  

Even if we, as students, didn't care about geography, we had to do it, or else we would fail the class.  To this day, I still beneifit from that class.  

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the only one I missed was the religion wih the most followers and I knew that Islam is close to Christianity.
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...especially when you look at the way the Christianity vote is slanted (last time I saw a Christianity poll in this country, it included everybody who didn't put down a different religion, like all agnostics, atheists etc, just because we're nominally a "Christian" country).  You could probably argue the same for Islam, too, in that "Islamic" countries are counted as all muslim, even though there may be a substantial population of non-muslims.

Phil

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...especially when you look at the way the Christianity vote is slanted (last time I saw a Christianity poll in this country, it included everybody who didn't put down a different religion, like all agnostics, atheists etc, just because we're nominally a "Christian" country).  You could probably argue the same for Islam, too, in that "Islamic" countries are counted as all muslim, even though there may be a substantial population of non-muslims.

Phil
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Actually if you followed the incident on Africa for the Ms Universe contest they probably do more than just mark it as Islam if it's left blank.  I read that a young man was stabbed and then a car tire filled with gas was places around his neck and burned alive.  All this just becase a newspaper said that Mohammed maybe would marry a Ms. U contestant.  150 dead because of the rioting.  

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I guess they should have said Mohammed would have married a winner, dated a runner-up and tolerated a contestant.  I got the religion question wrong as well.  

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 All this just becase a newspaper said that Mohammed maybe would marry a Ms. U contestant.  150 dead because of the rioting.  
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News this morning said it has passed the 200 mark.  Methinks Islam as a religion is a trifle lacking in the sense of humour department...

Phil

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News this morning said it has passed the 200 mark.  Methinks Islam as a religion is a trifle lacking in the sense of humour department...

Phil
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This is so bizzare that I cannot comprehend the thought process behind this.  
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You and me, both.  To live in a country where a chance off-the-cuff witticism (after all, it was a joke for christ's heaven's f**k's sake) causes a couple of hundred fatalities shows more than a slight lack of a sense of proportion

Phil

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PS - Nigerian government sources were complaining about the international media for "blowing it up out of all proportion"

...so that's all right then, it's only a couple of hundred people dead ???

Phil
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Oh well, people have died for less.   :-/
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...but not much less...

Phil

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...but not much less...

Phil
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And all done for the purpose of voting in a Ms. Universe.  Boy, wouldn't I be proud to know that 100s of people died in the name of a beauty paegent.  Oh well, people have died for less.   :-/

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I think this illustrates how different people really are based on where they live and their culture. In our society, not only would these killers be considered repressed, but murderers as well. In their neck of the world, they are defending their religion. I think this stemmed from someone publishing "if mohhommid was alive, he would marry one of these women." Perhaps we are different and should stay clear of that part of the globe. Let them continue to live in caves and mud huts. Not to mention there own women allow it to happen. Let them have their own sexual revolution.

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No, I'm not from that little country under Germany. That's Austria. You see that big island at the bottom left of the Pacific Ocean? That's Australia. That's where I'm from.

I've actually had to say that to people.
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No, I'm not from that little country under Germany. That's Austria. You see that big island at the bottom left of the Pacific Ocean? That's Australia. That's where I'm from.

I've actually had to say that to people.
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I've had a hard time telling people I'm from West Virginia.  I would be living in Virginia had there not been a U. S. Civil War…

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I've had a hard time telling people I'm from West Virginia.  I would be living in Virginia had there not been a U. S. Civil War…
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On that note Crazy Don, tell me why there is a North AND South Dakota, not enough people in both to fill Rhode Island!

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Because one is a godforsaken hellhole and the other...oh, I see what you mean...

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Because one is a godforsaken hellhole and the other...oh, I see what you mean...
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On that note Crazy Don, tell me why there is a North AND South Dakota, not enough people in both to fill Rhode Island!
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So that the population of each can look at the other and think "so there is someone in as bad a s***hole as this"?

Phil
(Who's never been to N or S Dakota, but has heard the occasional whinge...)

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The one populated with criminals, right? ;)

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Well I suppose if everyone else tells us so  ;D  So, yep, but not as many, huh ?  ;) ;) ;)

But we know where the rest of the world is in relation to us.... ;)