Stop pointing at Greenland...

I read an extremely disturbing article on CNN’s website this morning. It said that two-thirds of 18- to 24-year-old Americans can’t find Iraq on a map. Iraq. You know, the country that’s in the news every single day. The one with that war that’s been going on for the last few years. Iraaaaaaaq. Also, 88 percent can’t find Afghanistan, 63 percent can’t find Saudi Arabia, and 75 percent can’t find Iran or Israel.

What’s more, 47 percent couldn’t find India on a map. INDIA! Somebody tell me this is incorrect, please. India? For the love of extra-spicy chicken vindaloo, people – it’s a big freakin’ triangle above the Indian Ocean. (What? India is near the Indian Ocean?) How hard can it possibly be to find this place? Which countries were tripping these people up in their search for the Indian subcontinent? Did their eyes wander to Japan, where they’d point questioningly, hoping perhaps they’d guessed correctly? Or maybe Greenland – it sort of looks like a more northern, squashed, island version of India. (Yes, perhaps India has migrated toward the Arctic! Point at that one!) Or maybe Brazil – it does have that triangular shape we associate with India. Never mind the fact that it’s in South America…

Seventy-five percent of these people thought that English was the most widely-spoken native language in the world. And while the “good news” of this report was that most people COULD point out China on a map (will miracles never cease??) half of them were under the impression that China’s population was only twice as large as that of the U.S. (Which I suppose would explain why so few people could infer that CHINESE is the most widely-spoken native language in the world?) And, in another example of how these people stringently avoided the news before this survey was conducted, only a third knew that the earthquake that killed thousands of people back in October occurred in Pakistan. No word on whether any of these people could actually FIND Pakistan on a map. (Well, if you can find India… no, that’s Greenland again…)

Possibly even more upsetting is the fact that out of these 18- to 24-year-old AMERICANS – people who actually LIVE in this country – only 50 percent could find New York on a map. And a third had no idea where Louisiana was – another location with incessant news coverage lately, thanks to Hurricane Katrina. Have we just completely stopped even TRYING to teach geography in school? Or am I just some kind of crazy freak because I actually find maps and countries and culture and geographical locations interesting? Maybe we teach people these things, but they simply don’t care to remember.

Either way, I think I should go spend some quality time with my map…