morrigirl | Geography

This little news item, while hardly surprising, made me sigh and shake my head. It's not exactly news that geographic education hasn't been a top priority in this country for quite some time. For as long as I can remember, the only knowledge of geography anyone was expected to have was that of their immeidate surroundings. What's your address?Which way is Amsterdam Avenue? What train do I take to get to Park Slope? No other locations were considered relevent.

Geography was an elective in my junior high school. Let me say that again, elective. It was not incorporated into any of the required humanities curriculum, only those who wanted to learn about it had the opportunity. It was only offered for two terms and I took it both times. First term we learned to identify all 50 states and their capitals. We were tested by having to fill in state names on blank maps of the USA. Second term we moved on to Europe and had to learn the names of all the countries and their capitals. I already had a decent understanding of Middle Eastern geography thanks to the four months I spent in a private school when I was in fifth grade. It was an Episcopal school and they'd taught us all about the geography of the fertile crescent so we'd know where Jesus came from. So, by the time I was 12 I had a decent amount of geographic knowledge, compared to most of my peers at least.

There was no mention of geography again until my junior year of high school. Outta the blue one morning our Humanities teacher Ms. Finn passed out a blank map of the United States. "I'm giving you 10 minutes, I want everyone to fill in the names of the states," she said. This was no problem for me. I'd filled in tons of blank maps back in junior high. I was the first one finished and sat around reading while the rest of the class labored over their maps. When the ten minutes were up Ms. Finn collected the maps. "I see not all of you were able to finish," she said. "Well, you better get used to this because from now on this is what you're going to do first thing every morning until every single person in this room can identify all fifty states." Groans all around. The good thing was once you were able to successfully identify all the states you could stop taking the test. I was the first and only person to test out of the task on the first day. It wasn't until the following day that the girl who would become our class valedictorian was able to test out. A few others followed but after a month or so Ms. Finn gave up. She hadn't actually tried to teach us anything about geography in class, she'd just expected everyone to go out and learn on their own. Obviously, it didn't work and a good chunk of my class graduated from high school sans any structured geographic education.

In case you hadn't guessed yet, I think geography is a subject of immense importance. I seriously don't know how anyone can function in the world without a basic knowledge of it. I know so many people from so many different states and countries, I would feel like a complete block head if I had no clue where to stick a pushpin when someone said I'm from Nebraska, or Nigeria, or India, or Thailand. I think it's ridiculous that schools don't consider these things important enough to teach! It's only slightly less reprehensible than the New York City public education system that has more or less refused to provide its students with a useful English and literature curriculum for the last thirty plus years, but that's a journal entry for another time.

The arrogance connected to this lack of knowledge is disgusting. "I don't live there so I don't need to know about it." Bull-fucking-shit you don't! You need to know about the world you live in or else you cannot fully participate in it!