The American education system, or at least the people who like to think they run it, seem rather obsessed with not leaving any child behind. However, it seems that some of them might already have been left behind if this video of Miss Teen USA South Carolina is anything to go by…
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OK, so I get it now… it’s obvious why one fifth on US Americans can’t locate the USA on a world map… They don’t have maps! Of course! Forget this idea of not leaving any child behind… US schools don’t need national standards-based, high-stakes testing. They just need to buy everyone maps! Then they can concentrate on getting all those people from South Africa and The Iraq and those other Asian countries properly educated. WTF?!
Seriously though, I have a lot of US American friends, many of them teachers… wonderful, fabulous, dedicated teachers… and I personally believe that when I see video of, like, such as, some people in our nation like that poor girl stumbling over, like, that question, and such as… it makes me realise just how much patience we teachers must have as we persevere with kids like this in our classes.
Reminds me of this clip of The Chaser’s Julian Morrow interviewing Americans in the streets, and asking them about world politics, history and geography. This is just television, right? Right?
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Dude! Where's my Map? by Chris Betcher is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Hi,
WTF indeed. I thought this was particularly worrying in light of the fact that “the U.S. government spends more per student from elementary school through college–$12,023–than all countries except Switzerland.” [OECD]
Obviously, money can’t buy you … maps???