Thursday, April 19, 2007

Geography skillz

In one of my recent busywork teacher classes, a social studies teacher pointed out that she was amazed when her middle school kids didn't realize that Madagascar was, in fact, an island and not just a name made up for a movie. As we all shared another one of those 'aren't kids silly' laughs, a classmate (that is, another who is in this teacher-prep program) mentioned that she didn't learn that Kazakhstan was a real nation until after she had seen the Borat movie.

I'll grant that those are both a little obscure but it reminded me of a story a colleague told about how, while in Italy teaching young and rich Americans, she overheard one say to another that 'I may go to Ireland this weekend, I think it's a short train ride away.'

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Anonymous Anonymous said...

i was familiar with madagascar, but i did not know kazakhstan was a real country when i saw the movie... i assumed it was made up. i realized it was real a few weeks later when slashdot had an article that mentioned the country. -molino

3:18 PM  

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