Why 1/5 of Americans Can't Locate The U.S.

Last time I was in California, a young woman (late teens early twenties) asked me where I was from.

I said "England".

She said "England, is that near London?"



I said, "Yes, it's kinda close".

She said "I know a guy from London, David Smith (or something like that), do you know him?"

Geography was one of my favorite subjects in school. We covered a lot of ground in that class.

I didn't like History. It was too time consuming.

Originally posted by jsobecky
Have any of you had the opportunity (challenge) to speak in front of a crowd of strangers and TV cameras? If you did, you would most likely turn to stuttering, blushing, self-conscious stones the first few times. Your concentration would go out the window.

I agree, when you all can stand in front of lets say 200 people and answer off the cuff and not look like an idiot then you can pass jugement

Originally posted by Xtrozero
I agree, when you all can stand in front of lets say 200 people and answer off the cuff and not look like an idiot then you can pass jugement

Oh, give me a break! She lacks intelligence, plain and simple. She obviously performs in beauty pageants all the time, so she is used to being in front of large crowds. I can't believe you guys are making excuses for her stupidity. If you want to applaud the fact that so many adolescents today slack off, you go ahead and do so but most of us don't condone it. These are the people that will be running our country in the next two decades so I'd prefer they know where America is located.

[edit on 8/29/2007 by pjslug]

reply to post by pjslug

Originally posted by pjslug
Oh, give me a break! She lacks intelligence, plain and simple. She obviously performs in beauty pageants all the time, so she is used to being in front of large crowds. I can't believe you guys are making excuses for her stupidity. If you want to applaud the fact that so many adolescents today slack off, you go ahead and do so but most of us don't condone it.

[edit on 8/29/2007 by pjslug]

Guess what, pal? It's not your job to condone her actions or anybody elses except your own and your kids. So lighten up.

So she participates in beauty pageants. So what? I guess that what you do is oh so much more demanding, isn't it? I'm impressed.

To each his own. Get off your high horse and stop acting so condescending.

Originally posted by pjslug
Oh, give me a break! She lacks intelligence, plain and simple. She obviously performs in beauty pageants all the time, so she is used to being in front of large crowds. I can't believe you guys are making excuses for her stupidity. If you want to applaud the fact that so many adolescents today slack off, you go ahead and do so but most of us don't condone it. These are the people that will be running our country in the next two decades so I'd prefer they know where America is located.

[edit on 8/29/2007 by pjslug]

I didn't say she wasn't stupid. I said if you can stand in front of a large crowd and not look stupid then bash away.

BTW do you think the kids 30 years ago knew where America was? I remember a show back in the early 70s where young people in New York were asked about Arizona and many not only didn’t know where it was but they also thought cowboys and Indians were still running around. This is nothing new…



[edit on 29-8-2007 by Xtrozero]

reply to post by pjslug


Have you ever considered the possibility that maybe she wasn't born with certain intellectual gifts? Would you be acting so superior if she had a speech defect and wasn't able to clearly pronounce certain words?

We're all born with certain talents; no two of us are identical. Calling somebody stupid is an immature display of superiority. In my experience, people with some deep insecurity act like that; they need to hide their own failings, so they make themselves look good by attacking lesser people.

reply to post by jsobecky


I like how you so conveniently left out the last sentence from my post. Why don't you respond to that part instead since it was the whole meaning to my post?

Originally posted by jsobecky
Would you be acting so superior if she had a speech defect and wasn't able to clearly pronounce certain words?

Oh, come on. Don't play the what if game. She doesn't have a speech defect and she doesn't have any form of mental retardation. If she did, chances are she wouldn't have made it that far in the contest since America has this problem putting "less than perfect" physical attributes anywhere in the media spotlight.

The media even hyped up the event and put her back on television to correct her answer (see the video link I posted previously). This had nothing to do with a teenage girl making an innocent or a careless mistake. This has to do with the constant dumbing down of America and this girl's response was a clear representation of it.

[edit on 8/29/2007 by pjslug]

reply to post by pjslug

Originally posted by pjslug
I like how you so conveniently left out the last sentence from my post.

Why don't you respond to that part instead since it was the whole meaning to my post?

I'll respond to it, but you're not going to get away from the fact that you called her stupid. That was mean-spirited and what we'd expect of undisciplined children.

To respond to your "future leaders" point: how do you know she doesn't want to be just a cook or a bottle washer? You have some inside knowledge you'd like to share with us?

Anyway, if she does decide to be a leader, she'll have one advantage over you - maturity. At least she didn't call the 1 in 5 people "stupid".

Originally posted by pjslug
Oh, come on. Don't play the what if game. She doesn't have a speech defect and she doesn't have any form of mental retardation.

What's her IQ? How many times has she been on a national stage in front of cameras? How many pageants of this significance has she participated in? You make a lot of assumptions which you can't back up.

And who's talking about mental retardation?

Originally posted by pjslug
The media even hyped up the event and put her back on television to correct her answer (see the video link I posted previously). This had nothing to do with a teenage girl making an innocent or a careless mistake. This has to do with the constant dumbing down of America and this girl's response was a clear representation of it.

Wrong again. It has to do with the fact that most Americans are forgiving people who are willing to give people a second chance. You are the exception - a person who wants to appear superior by poking fun at a young lady who got a case of the nerves at an inconvenient time.

To further my point - did she have a problem finding the US on a map? No, she just had problems with her answer. So your name-calling is even more malicious and petty, imo.

BTW a lot of this leads my past posts about the failure of the parents to be involved in the education and development of their children. My 4 year old will correct a 12 year old when the 12 year old says “oh look the first star of the night” and he will then tell them “no that is Jupiter” and get strange looks from the 12 year old, or my first grader who was reading Harry Potter and 80% of his classmates were having a hard time with Dr. Seuss. If you allow the school system that is designed for the lowest common denominator to do it all then your kids have already failed.

[edit on 29-8-2007 by Xtrozero]

She claimed on the Today show that she pretty much was thrown off because of the question, I guess. Its pretty hard to talk in public, especially with a crowd like that, but that honestly shouldn't be the excuse. I thought they practiced for things like that? Was this a local beauty pageant? a lead up to the miss america pageant? Either way, they had to make "Miss so-and-so state" by doing almost the same thing theyre doing now! So... yeah.. freezing in front of people shouldnt be too much of a problem. And if all else fails... Take a public speaking course at your local community college.

I feel that the onus needs to fall on the parents in a large degree. If I had any kids(I don't and don't plan to because, well look around) I would be appalled at the level of education that they seem to be receiving today. I'm only 26, but I have noticed that the schooling I went through was much more in depth and involved than what happens today.

Perhaps it's due to the fact that we feel we need to have a lot of "stuff" to be accepted. Maybe it's because we have this illusion of freedom when we are almost being worked like slaves to pay for stuff that keeps getting more and more expensive every year that we are too busy to notice what is really happening. There is too much to do to keep yourself afloat to worry about the declining education system.

If you have kids, make sure you teach them yourselves, and not just rely on the schools to do it for you. Someone else in this post mentioned that the teachers do not get any incentives for making sure there students understand whats being taught to them, and can do more then regurgitate it on this weeks test. They are so overloaded as it is. Class sizes went from 20-25 kids per class to more than 30 in the five years I was in High School(OAC isn't offered here in Canada anymore). Now the students are having 2-3 years of coursework being put into one year of class. How much is overlooked as non important??

This needs to change, or our future may be very bleak indeed.

Playing the devils advocate here, you also have to consider that, in the role which she was asked to comment, telling the obvious reason why people can't even point out there own country on the map wasn't really an option.

So she was left with trying to think up an alternative answer on the spot, bringing about the gibberish we all saw.

You would be flustered too if you had to give an answer to that question when you knew that giving the "because they are stupid" answer would result in your death (which for a beauty queen equals being shunned and hated by all these beauty pageant people for a long time to come).

This mainly because the type of audience that goes to and participate in these beauty pageants are exactly the kind of people who can't point out where the US is on a map.

Okay, I thinkk like that, like um... she's just abit of a bimbo thingg
and that she doesn't kno muchhh about....
anythingggg....
and umm i think totallly that and she is one of those five people that can't do that? maybe i think sooo..
and she didnt get much education
and. that... the us should help her

[edit on 30-8-2007 by T0by]

This goes under the category "How to lie with statistics."


Let's play a little game, ATS American posters

Look at this map

Can you find Kiska?

It is part of a US state. If you can't find it, then I can add you to my "Can't find the United States on a Map" database.

If you found Kiska, can you find Mustang Island?


If you're European, how about the Gulf of Bothnia? Or Andorra?


It's all about perspective.

Why is it that us U.S. Americans always make scuses for the purdy 1's

If that was some unsightly or just hideous (real scary) person everyone would be jumping on the band wagon..

lol

she is pretty though..

GEO

reply to post by geocom

If that was some unsightly or just hideous (real scary) person everyone would be jumping on the band wagon..

Do you think so? Hmmm...that's surprising to me, seriously. The people that I associate with wouldn't take personal appearance into account one way or the other when judging someone.

I just don't get people sometimes. Look at the thread tags for this thread. The girl didn't have a problem finding the US on the map, she merely got flustered giving her answer. And for this she is labeled as "lacking intelligence"?

[edit on 30-8-2007 by jsobecky]

reply to post by dr_strangecraft


Well, thats totally not the same thing imho, not finding the the USofA and not finding a specific city or island on a blank map is nothing alike.

On that map I personally, can note down nearly all country's with rather accurate approximation of the borders, most of the US states, most of the best known cities, most of the seas and oceans, a crap load of monuments and if you like, even where Bigfoot, Nessy, the great pyramids and most of the south American temples are.

Finding the US on that blank map is still easy imho (but then again I have an above average IQ and am very interest in history and geography).

Not finding the US on a map that has all the countries nicely marked of (as it was in the clip with the fake australian PM) is stupid, no matter how you look at it.