More Maps for Americans

If you missed the Miss Teen USA pageant, you didn't miss much, except for the answer from Miss South Carolina when asked why she thinks a fifth of Americans don't know where the US is on a map. Her reply was that we don't have enough maps. She continued to try and make a statement about education in countries such as South Africa and Iraq. Unfortunately, she is now all over the blogosphere with the video on You Tube. Part of me empathizes with her as I don't see myself getting up on stage in front of millions of viewers to answer random questions. This young lady could very well could have great academics, and maybe even received straight A's on all of her report cards (which doesn't seem to count for much in today's studies, after all we don't have enough maps). Mayb she simply lost her words and was uncertain how to answer, hey it happens to all of us. I'm not out to badger the poor girl, I truly hope that she is confident enough with all other aspects in her life that she still holds her head high. Now, with that said, maybe she raises a good point...

Let's think for a minute how some of our other teenagers might answer this question. Right now there is a crisis in America, and I'm not just talking about the control of the House and Senate, but rather the education of our kids. For example, our elementry students, I bet that almost all of them across the world knows who Martin Luther King Jr. was, but if they are asked to tell us who the first five American Presidents were, would they know? It's unfortunate that our education system seems to pick and choose what part of history they want to teach. Not only that, but when recently talking with my husband about his speech class his book referenced speechs by Barack Obama, but didn't seem to mention anything about great speaches given by Abraham Lincoln. That to me, is obsurd.

When I heard this clip from Miss South Carolina, I went up and asked my 13 year old, "Why do you think a fifth of American's don't know where the United States is on a map?" She replied, "Because people don't care." My thought exactly. But these same people might care about Paris Hilton going to jail, or when their favorite reality show comes on. It's mind boggling to me that we've seem to have lost interest to teach our children about how America came to be. What sacrafices were made to be where we're at today. If one of our supposedly brightest teenagers, a role model for our kids, that can't conclude as reason as to why people don't know where the United States is on a map, I would hate to hear the reply of one of average students.

So for those of you who are reading this and out there that don't know where the United States is...

I'll help you out... Here's a map, can you find your country??

.....And here is the United States of America....where does this piece fit in the above world map? If you've found it, you now know where the US is on the map and you can discount yourself from the percentage of Amercians that couldn't find where we are on the map. Yahoo!!!