Once upon a time, in the dark ages, geography was considered as a key element in the grade school/high school curriculum. I still remember spending time studying maps and being expected to know how the earth was organized geographically. Apparently that isn't the case any longer.
I thought you might appreciate this tidbit that an instructor posted in one of the professional chat groups I belong to. He used as a "giveaway" question on an exam the following: "Which continents are capable of sustaining life?" The question itself became moot as some of the students began arguing about how many continents there are--5 or 6. Those who mentioned that there are seven were told, in one case, that Pluto was no longer a continent, so there are now only 6 left. And he teaches at a University that is considered as Tier I. And no, they really don't pay us enough money to face this day in and day out.
14 comments:
It's not just the students. My Bil's company is trying to drum up new business overseas and someone at one of their meetings said that they shouldn't even consider Afghanistan because the Middle East is not stable enough. What's worse is that my Bil was the only one who pointed out that while Afghanistan might be in Asia it wasn't in the Middle East. Plenty of people who thought he was wrong.
WOW...
I hated Geography! I thought that it should be more maps and less of vegetation and population talk. Was this maybe the first day of class? Maybe this was a 101 course and it was the first day, people lose a lot over the summer...let's judge positively...or cry.
Hate to be the one to break this to you Tuvi but Afghanistan is part of the Middle East. For frum people we consider the Middle East as only those Arab countries that surround Israel but it's bigger than that.
An Ed professor once told us that the best emergency lesson you can have prepared if you're going to be substituting is map work or geography. Someone asked what grades the lesson would be appropriate for and she answered "grades 1-16". Seems that we Americans are not known for our geography knowledge.
Professor, I thought you were pretty up to date with technology.
Haven't you heard of those Geography Professional Systems (GPS) things? Alot of people have them in their cars, so who needs geography studies, you just buy one of those gizmos!
d,
Go ahead, program Kabul, Afghanistan into your GPS and do let me know how far you get.
Google has finally fixed the glitch, but in the past if you asked for driving directions from New York to any point in Europe, they'd give them to you. I can just imagine someone's putting in a claim to their car insurance and beginninig the story " I was on my way driving from NY to Paris and my car sank..."
Profk-
I always liked geography which is why I thought it was quite amusing when I heard this week that a group of geographers ( who knew we had geographers?) had theoretically located Bin Laden
http://tierneylab.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/18/geographers-find-bin-laden-theoretically/
Ya'akob,
My brother in California has his PhD in Geography. He heads the Department of Geography at one of the U of California branches, not a department commonly seen in colleges back East. I guess when people keep telling you that your state is going to end up in the Pacific Ocean you take geography seriously.
Actually, there is a real debate about how many continents there are. Some view Asia and Europe as a single continent, others count both Americas together (which doesn't make much sense to me... they seem to be two clearly distinct landmasses, connection notwithstanding) and still others say Oceania is just a bunch of islands. This is an ongoing debate in education; if you move you have to check it with the district you teach in to see what to tell the students!
[deep, heartfelt sigh]
No wonder everyone thinks Americans are so dumb.
Might I ask in what part of the country this university is located?
Scraps,
Let's just say the University is in one of the original 13 colonies.
Bas Melech, thank you for your comment. I was pretty sure that when I learned geography, we were told that Europe and Asia form one continent: Eurasia. So the total number of continents is only 6. From what I understand, here in the states those two a separated into two continents.
"
Google has finally fixed the glitch, but in the past if you asked for driving directions from New York to any point in Europe, they'd give them to you."
Glitch? The directions included "Swim across the Atlantic Ocean". It was a joke.
Shmendrik,
Yes, a joke, but an awful lot of people missed the "punch line" and queried Google for the rest of the directions. When lots of people using Google are not strong English speakers then a joke morphs into a glitch.
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