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MONGOUA
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PHILIPPINES
CARIBBEAN SEA
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MEXICO
CUBA
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SOUTH AMERICA
PACIFIC OCEAN
,
AFRICA
(
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lANKA
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~
TAIWAN
MONSOON
INDONESIA
í
AUSTRAUA
WHERE IN THEWORLD?
by
Keith W. Stump
Geographic illiteracy has become a disease of epidemic proportions! Why?
T
HE WORLD
of education
is still reeling from the
shock!
A report released just
last December by the Association
of American Geographers and
the National Council for Geo–
graphic Education declared, in no
uncertain terms, that the United
States is rapidly becoming a
nation of "geography illi terates"!
The report cited a 1983 test in
geography developed by prominent
educators and administered by the
Dalias
Times-Herald
to American
12-year-olds. More than 20 percent
May 1985
of the students could not find the
U nited States on a world map.
Another 20 percent identified Bra–
zil as the United States!
The report also said that in an
American
college-level
survey of
global understanding by the Educa–
tional Testing Service, the median
score was an appalling 42.9 out of a
possible 1O1!
"There is a huge number of chil–
dren and adults who haven't a clue
about the re1ationship between
geography and history or geogra–
phy and anything else," observes
Dr. Bob Aangeenbrug, executive
director of the Association of
American Geographers. "We now
have a generation that has a limited
capacity to put those things
together."
A few years earl ier, the Gallup
organization administered a nation–
wide test on world geography. Here
are just a few of the rnany "inter–
esting"- but
incorrect-answers
supplied by those American 17-
and 18-year-olds:
The Sinai Desert is in Vietnam.
Angola is in the Philippines.
~
French and Latin are the most
!
widely spoken languages in Latin
>
America. Africa is the world's most
§
populous nation. Mexico and Cana-
¡¡;
da were the last two states admit.ted
~
to the United States. lt would :.:
9