Should Ex Pats teach Geography?

[Heeb]

I was in Pensacola Florida for some training and I had just came back stateside from being stationed in Guam so I still had Guam plates on my car. This older woman walks up to me in a parking lot and asks me if I drove all the way from Guam, and since it says Guam USA on the plate she asked me "since when is Guam part of the U.S.A."

[Mark Berkowitz]

22 minutes ago, Heeb said:

"since when is Guam part of the U.S.A."

Reminds me of my Pinay step-daughter who was shocked to learn (from me) that the Philippines was formerly a Commonwealth of the USA... what on Earth are these kids (NOT) learning?

Edited June 21, 2019 by Mark Berkowitz
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[bastonjock]

my gf who is an intelligent lady, she has a Masters in psychology ,  turned to be and showed me a photo on FB of a friend in Copenhagen  , wheres that she asked ? Denmark I replied ,which part of America is that she said.

They really have not got much of a handle on the world around them

[Heeb]

When we moved from Seattle to Spokane my wife couldn't understand how we were still just as close to Canada as we were before.

[Dave Hounddriver]

 

 

 

7 hours ago, Heeb said:

I was in Pensacola Florida . . . This older woman walks up to me in a parking lot and asks me if I drove all the way from Guam, and since it says Guam USA on the plate she asked me "since when is Guam part of the U.S.A."

Are you making the point that just because a person is older and from the USA does not mean she knows shit about Geography?  (Thus expats teaching Geography would just be feeding their own egos as they may not be as correct as they believe they are.)  OR was this older woman a Filipina and are you suggesting that certain races don't know shit about Geography?  

[Heeb]

9 minutes ago, Dave Hounddriver said:

Are you making the point that just because a person is older and from the USA does not mean she knows shit about Geography?  (Thus expats teaching Geography would just be feeding their own egos as they may not be as correct as they believe they are.)  OR was this older woman a Filipina and are you suggesting that certain races don't know shit about Geography?  

I wasn't really trying to make a point I guess, it was funny when it happened, she was white and I just found it odd that she didn't know Guam was in the Pacific Ocean, not knowing it was a U.S. territory was excusable. I remember learning about the Spanish-American war in grade school.

[Tommy T.]

There are a lot of people everywhere these days who are ignorant about geography and history too. I was a sailor cruising around the Pacific and just awe-struck by all the different places, cultures and simple vastness of the ocean. Even with my old geography degree (yeah, some people actually have those!) I found I was ignorant about so much of the Pacific - and still am about places I did not visit. I wonder how many people here in the Philippines know that the Germans colonized here before the Spanish? The Germans also colonized much of the western Pacific Islands - that was news to me!

I am just sad to see these two subjects losing their importance and the interest of so many people in lieu of "social networking" and broadcast TV. But to each his own, I guess...

 

[Dave Hounddriver]

2 hours ago, Tommy T. said:

Even with my old geography degree (yeah, some people actually have those!)

I was impressed enough to go to Dr Google.  I had never heard of anyone with a Geography degree.  Turns out that:
 

Quote

Bachelors of Science degrees usually involved studying physical geography, whereas BA degrees tend to focus on human geography

Thus a person with a BA in Geography would know all about people and may still not be able to find Hoboken on a map. I am not sure from your post if you have a BA or a BS?

[Tommy T.]

Well, you are wise to Google that to see the difference.  My degree is BA in geography (although some think it should be called BS! joke). However it involved a lot of physical geography too - like cartography, meteorology, geomorphology, remote sensing - because these all relate to humans. Been to Hoboken, so you can't fool me there!

[Tommy T.]

I think my original comment about geography degree was imprecise because the small university I attended only offered a BA program in geography. It is so long ago, but the definition of geography that I remember (and it might be wrong after all these years) was something about being the relation of humans to the earth - in simplest terms...