haters

I'm sick of defending certain American stereotypes to Europeans.

Specifically, I'm sick of defending the stereotype that Americans don't know geography and don't know about the rest of the world. I suppose the stereotype is generally true and that the majority of Americans are not super map savvy. However, I'd like to defend my country not with a defensive move but with an offensive one (a la Americana)...

Yesterday in class, I passed out a handout that I had made for my students to help them with their weather vocabulary (basic words like sunny, windy, rainy, stormy, summer, winter, spring, fall, hot, cold, etc.). On one side of the handout was a blank world map. on which I had circled and numbered certain regions (i.e. the Sahara desert, Andalucía, California, the Caribbean, Patagonia, etc.). In groups, the students were meant to form one sentence about each of the numbered areas.

Aside from the appalling fact that it took at least 20 minutes for the rowdy students to understand the directions (they tend to close their ears and shut down their brains as soon as they hear something spoken to them in English...), I was even more flabbergasted by their lack of geographical knowledge.

#1 was easy: Andalucía. The students were able to correctly stipulate, "It's sunny and hot in Andalucía."

But thereafter, their geographical knowledge plummeted. I explained to them that the point of the exercise was not to correctly name the regions or countries, but rather to practice weather vocabulary. That being said, I circled regions that I assumed they would recognize, such as, Australia.

That's right, I circled Australia. And some of my 13 year-old students didn't recognize the Australian continent on the world map. Other problem areas? England, the Caribbean, Scandinavia...the list goes on.

Forgive me for being harsh regarding my students' academic knowledge, it's just that over the course of the past few days I have found myself again and again responding to Europeans' negative assertions about Americans' lack of knowledge of this same topic. I explain that essentially every single person I know in the states has a basic knowledge of world geography ("essentially" leaves room for the very few of my friends who don't - you know who you are). I knew where Australia was at the age of 6. Please stop telling me that Americans are ignorant; every society has their share of ignorance.

Although, I must say, there is a reason that this stereotype exists of Americans, and it's this girl. I've had more than one European share this link with me. And to that, I have no defense.