[QUOTE=Anne Neville]
But hasn’t always followed these things that closely since they had to know them for geography class. I had the same experience when I went to the Czech Republic last year- I got blank looks when I told people where I was going, until I said “Czechoslovakia”. Then people seemed to know what I was talking about.
[/QUOTE]
Sorry, but I still see it as ignorance. Widespread, maybe, but ignorance nonetheless.
[QUOTE=Mangetout]
I’m sure I’m wrong, but I can’t help but ask. When you say ‘run down’, you don’t mean what I hope you don’t mean, do you? (that is to say, you’re not labouring under the apparently not-uncommon misconception that all rivers flow south, are you?)
[/QUOTE]
And I hope you’re not labouring under the misconception that “south” is “down.” 
It depends largely upon which school you went to in America. This has probably already been said, but independent private schools tend to have a far broader and deeper education than do many of the public schools, depending on where you live. For example, I went to a merit-based independent private school in a mid-sized Indiana town. I had two-hour long classes my senior year and took anthropology, psychology, organic chemistry, advanced placement biology, spanish, english and calculus. However, many of my peers in the public school either didn’t have the same opportunities I did because their cirriculum was based on state funding or they were in a large class (my graduating class was 24 compared to a friends’ 500) and the teacher wasn’t able to devote a lot of personalized attention to their students.
I went to the same school from sixth grade through graduation from high school and by the time I got to high school, knew my geography really well and had a general idea of the languages and culture in certain regions of the world.
I felt really lucky to have gotten a scholarship to that school - a lot of my friends felt like their teachers didn’t give a tin shit about them in public school, whereas my teachers did (probably because they were paid to) and were known to regularly intervene to help you through a tough spot or really challenge you if they felt you needed more pushing.
[QUOTE=Lemur866]
Well, there’s what kids get taught in school about other countries, and there’s what they remember 20 years later standing in line at Disneyland. Those people learned algebra in school too, but most of them don’t remember any math more complicated than figuring out the tip after dinner, and plenty of people can’t even do that. Or they took 2 years of spanish in high school and all they remember is “hola” and “adios”.
The sad fact is that most people learn only enough to get by in school, and promptly forget anything they don’t use in their daily lives. And a carpenter or mechanic probably uses 10 times more math than your average white collar office worker.
[/QUOTE]
Exactly. Unless you have a personal interest in learning and using the knowledge gained in school, you’re not going to retain it. Look at that daft show “Are you smarter than a 5th grader”–those contestants were taught that stuff in school. They just don’t remember any of it, because they haven’t needed it in their adult lives, or else they weren’t paying attention in school to begin with.
As far as my contribution to the education of Our Precious Youth in this area:
My students learn Western Europe extensively, Eastern Europe haphazardly, Russia extensively, Africa as it pertains to Imperialism, ditto India and China, Canada only as it relates to the Seven Years War, the rest of the world not at all. We do address Comparative Government with my seniors, and we discuss differences between the systems used by the US, Canada and Mexico.
[QUOTE=Usram]
But apparently in US History classes, things like … the Spanish-American war are still hot topics of conversation.
[/QUOTE]
Hell yes, it is! We just stopped paying for it in July, '06.
[QUOTE=Anne Neville]
But hasn’t always followed these things that closely since they had to know them for geography class.
[/QUOTE]
“These things” being major world events. See my comment about the media.
[QUOTE=Cluricaun]
It did however take a while for that information to really be included. When I was in grade school and middle school (80’s through the early 90’s) most of our US History books kind of trailed off somewhere around the Korean war.
.
[/QUOTE]
This was exactly what I was talking about.
[QUOTE=Raguleader]
The French helped us out against the Brits, and within 20 years, the Brits were helping us out against the French. The first chunk of US military history is a cycle back and forth between helping the Brits against the French and helping the French against the Brits, with a couple of breaks to fight the Barbary States over their raiding our merchant ships.
[/QUOTE]
As I recall, didn’t the brits back the confederacy in the civil war, with the french being pro-union. Plus the french coughed up the big green statue in NY harbour, which was kind of nice. In return they get slammed when they decide not to replay Viet Nam.
Which is another geographic and historical black hole, as far as I can tell.
[QUOTE=kenghisghan]
In return they get slammed when they decide not to replay Viet Nam.
[/QUOTE]
Which reminds me: in a rare display of independent thinking*, Vietnam was the only recent US war that the UK declined to play a part in. I’m interested in contemporary views on that abstention: did people in the 1960s insist that they were eating “freedom muffins”, speaking the “freedom language” and the like?
*Drawing an embarrassed and shamed veil over Suez.
Eh. Based on the experiences we have with our lords and masters back at head office in New York, I’d be happy if US schools restricted their geography lessons to making the kids write out “There are OTHER countries in the world and they do things DIFFERENTLY” for about five hours a week, for about ten years or so. Then it might finally sink in.
“Why can’t you do it the way we do it in the US.?”
“Because it’s illegal to do that over here”
“Why? It’s legal in the US”
“Well, this isn’t the US. Things are different”
“Why?”
:smack:
[QUOTE=jjimm]
Which reminds me: in a rare display of independent thinking*, Vietnam was the only recent US war that the UK declined to play a part in. I’m interested in contemporary views on that abstention: did people in the 1960s insist that they were eating “freedom muffins”, speaking the “freedom language” and the like?
[/QUOTE]
Well, the Aussies were involved in Vietnam, and you white furrin-types are all the same to us, so the UK was “represented” as well could be expected. Besides, back then we’d never even heard of the word “coalition.” We expected to fight all our wars alone, seeing as how we had, just 20 years before, puller Europe’s nuts out of the fire single-handed. Oh, maybe the Brits were somewhere in there around the edges, but it was the American GI who saved the world from the Nazis, and would now save the world from the godless Commies.
I distinctly remember filling in maps of the middle east, far east, south america, canadian provinces, and more maps of europe than I care to think about (from various time periods, too). Most of this was covered in high school, in World Cultures, Ancient Civilizations, European Civilizations, and America at War. Things like languages were usually covered in those classes as well, but most information about the Irish Language probably came from my AP Lit teacher. The biggest dark spot in my geography knowledge is Africa. I can reliably point out Morocco, South Africa, and Madagascar, with Ethiopia being hit or miss. I could name almost all the countries that are on the continent, but don’t ask me to fill out a map.
Shoot, I forgot Egypt. I can get Egypt in my sleep.
[QUOTE=Ro Carter]
Shoot, I forgot Egypt. I can get Egypt in my sleep.
[/QUOTE]
Yeah, but that’s 'cause that’s the Second Map. The first one is the Fertile Crescent. (Sometimes it’s the Third Map, if the First Map is the Rift Valley.)
[QUOTE=Miller]
Other countries?!
[/QUOTE]
Sorry, my bad. They got misfiled under “Miscellaneous”. 
I had a rather good education so I learned plenty about “other countries” (or at least, regions of the world) in “Social Studies” classes. I suspect the curriculum of most any school in the country also does. It’s a matter of what the average student managed to retain instead of vomiting after the cram and regurgitation session a few hours before the multiple choice test.
[QUOTE=slaphead]
Eh. Based on the experiences we have with our lords and masters back at head office in New York, I’d be happy if US schools restricted their geography lessons to making the kids write out “There are OTHER countries in the world and they do things DIFFERENTLY” for about five hours a week, for about ten years or so. Then it might finally sink in.
“Why can’t you do it the way we do it in the US.?”
“Because it’s illegal to do that over here”
[/QUOTE]
I’m curious about this now. What is it legal to do in New York that you discuss with a “Head Office” there, but is not legal where you are? Especially after Rudy Giuliani ran the city for a while?
[QUOTE=guizot]
Without Google.
[/QUOTE]
I honestly haven’t checked the answer nor seen if someone else has posted but i’ll go with Swiss German, French, Italian and Romance (Romansh).
[QUOTE=olivesmarch4th]
I have to get a little defensive about being called out on not knowing there is an Irish language. I knew of the existence of Gaelic, but I thought it was a dead language, would not have considered it ‘‘speaking Irish’’ either. Because the truth is I don’t know much at all about that region of the world. I don’t know how long Ireland has been Ireland, but I rather assumed Gaelic existed long before Ireland did.
[/QUOTE]
That’s one interesting thing about the Irish language, it’s only called Irish in Ireland really. Most people in other countries would say Gaelic.
As per the OP I’ve met British people in Ireland and abroad whose knowledge of Ireland has been woeful, some not entirely clear that the Republic of Ireland is a separate independent state. That said I’d be hard pressed to find all but the major cities on a blank map of Britain and I would be terrible with the counties and regions. Until I visited Sheffield I thought it was somewhere near Sunderland or Newcastle!
In essence unless it is out of a particular interest you usually only know (geographically anyway) what you need to know. Recollection of what you were supposed to be learning in school isn’t a given.
[QUOTE=slaphead]
Eh. Based on the experiences we have with our lords and masters back at head office in New York, I’d be happy if US schools restricted their geography lessons to making the kids write out “There are OTHER countries in the world and they do things DIFFERENTLY” for about five hours a week, for about ten years or so. Then it might finally sink in.
“Why can’t you do it the way we do it in the US.?”
“Because it’s illegal to do that over here”
“Why? It’s legal in the US”
“Well, this isn’t the US. Things are different”
“Why?”
:smack:
[/QUOTE]
You sound like you’re repeating conversations my father used to have with his Lords and Masters back in the UK while he worked for a UK based Pharmeceutical company.
“Let’s set up the test protocols this way.”
“No. That’s more expensive, and we don’t need them to get this drug cleared by (whomever does drug certification for human use, is that the NHS as well, or a seperate part of the gov’t?).”
“But if we do just what you want to do, we’ll have to repeat the tests this way anyways, to get it certified with the FDA.”
“Why can’t we just do one test to cover all agencies?”
“That’s what I’m trying to suggest. Do this test protocol and it will meet both US and UK standards.”
“If it’s good enough for the UK we shouldn’t have to cater to any other standards.”
:smack:
IIRC, this was at a time when sales to NHS were projected to be about 15-20% of the revenues from a new medication, while sales to the US were 35-45% of the revenues. ISTR, too, that FDA certification was worth more for international sales, too, than UK cert.