ABCJimmy Kimmel has given the world a real treat in the form of Americans not being able to name a single country on a map.
As for as content goes, this isn’t anywhere near original. But it makes you feel a bit better about yourself, doesn’t it, to know that even if you failed uni, and maybe still aren’t so sure of your cooking capabilities beyond spag bol, that at least you can confidently say ‘that’s Poland,’ on a map of the globe.
Americans, apparently, do not possess this ability. In the slightest.
In a genuinely-alarming display of geographical illiteracy, watch as Jimmy Kimmel’s production team took to the off-with-the-fairies streets of Los Angeles to humiliate their own nation:
Yeesh, lotta Yanks think Africa is a country, don’t they? Also Australia = Europe? Christ almighty.
As is custom with these sorta things, the people featured may well be actors or at the very least the worst of a generally talented bunch of punters. After all, a kid cleans up towards the end of the video.
Regardless, it brings to the table every European’s favourite indulgence: talking smack about how stupid Americans are.
ABCIn a Washington Post piece from 2014, it was revealed only 16 percent of Americans could locate Ukraine on a world map. Hilariously, a significant number of respondents placed Ukraine in central Greenland.
The article also indicated that Democrats and Republicans are both clueless about Ukraine, with only 14 and 15 percent of respondents respectively able to locate the country. Political independents, on the other hand, performed much better, with a 29 percent success rate.
In 2011, a report by the National Assessment of Educational Progress found only about one-fourth of American students are proficient in geography. Twenty-one percent of fourth grade students, 27 pper cent of eighth graders and only 20 per cent of 12th grade students performed at or above the proficient level on the previous year’s geography assessment, according to Reuters.
GettyOn top of that, the report found while fourth graders did slightly better than the last assessment in 1994, eighth-grade students stayed roughly the same and 12th graders actually declined in geographic awareness.
A statement said:
In particular, the pattern of disappointing results for our 12th graders’ performance across all three social science subjects should be of great concern to everyone.
Commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics Sean Buckley added:
Students were asked to look beyond place-name geography, and demonstrate their subject knowledge and problem-solving skills.
The Geography framework combines key physical science and social science aspects of geography and focuses on what students should know to be competent and productive 21st century citizens.
PixabayA National Geographic poll from 2014 of over 500 young Americans, aged 18 to 24, showed that six per cent failed to locate their own country on a world map.
Three quarters also said English was the most commonly spoken native language in the world. It is actually third, behind Mandarin Chinese and Spanish.
So there you have it. The stereotype is somewhat true. Sorry, Americans! If you don’t like the above, you can mail me your hate. I live in England, if you have any idea where that is.
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