Retard America

Chicago Tribune

American youth have no direction home or abroad

A five-year, multimedia campaign called My Wonderful World aims to reach children ages 8 to 17. The goal is to motivate parents and educators to expand geographic offerings in school, at home and in their communities. They will have their task cut out for them, judging by the results of the survey of 510 people interviewed in December and January. It found 33 percent of respondents couldn't pinpoint Louisiana on a map and 48 percent were unable to locate Mississippi. But Southerners shouldn't feel unappreciated. Half of respondents could not find New York either.

Joining the geographic education campaign will be 4H, the American Federation of Teachers, Asia Society, Association of American Geographers, National Basketball Association, National Council of La Raza, National PTA, Smithsonian Institution and others.

"Geography exposes children and adults to diverse cultures, different ideas and the exchange of knowledge from around the world," said Anna Marie Weselak, president of the National PTA. "This campaign will help make sure our children get their geography so they can become familiar with other cultures during their school years and move comfortably and confidently in a global economy as adults."

Lost Generation

The National Geographic-Roper Public Affairs geography survey of young adult Americans found:

Only 37 percent could identify Iraq on a map of the Middle East. (As Tribune readers surely know, it's the country highlighted above.)

Only 12 percent could locate Afghanistan on a map of Asia.

One of the few bright spots was that 69 percent could identify China [Editor's Note--This is a BRIGHT SPOT? It's ****ing CHINA!!!!] on a map. But on another aspect of China, they did far worse. In a multiple-choice quiz, only 18 percent answered correctly that Mandarin Chinese is the most widely spoken native language in the world. Most people-74 percent-thought it was English.

While the outsourcing of jobs to India has been a major U.S. business story, 47 percent could not find the Indian subcontinent on a map of Asia. When given a list of four countries (Indonesia, India, Armenia and South Africa) and asked which one was majority Muslim, only 25 percent said correctly that it was Indonesia. Nearly half (48 percent) answered India, which is only 13 percent Muslim.

While Israeli-Palestinian strife has been in the news for the entire lives of the respondents, 75 percent were unable to locate Israel on a map of the Middle East.
Six in 10 did not know that the border between North and South Korea is the most heavily fortified in the world. Thirty percent thought the most heavily fortified border was between the United States and Mexico.

Two-thirds didn't know that the earthquake that killed 70,000 people in October 2005 occurred in Pakistan.