[PRCo] Re: Geography

[Harold Geissenheimer]

Greetings to all

About geography......for some reasons I never understood,
some schools (most?) have dropped the subject.

But there other reasons I believe for the lack of geographic knowledge.

Aviation vs long distance trains....Fly to California and try to
identify the states in between coasts.

Taking a train you identified the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains,

Read the timetable and you learn your route

When I was in high school I learned the railroad routes by collecting
rr system timetables.  They were in racks in hotel lobbies available to all.

Also avaliable road maps.  Every oil company issued free maps which
were available in gas stations.  I collected them also.

In the NY public schools, I had geography classes.  Often tied to history
to explain the Civil War etc.  I believe most Europeans can name 
adjacent nations by taking the train.

Being a rail fan helped also.

My mother only reached 8th grade before going to work in World War I
But she could name the various capitals.

I wonder now in western Pa how many students know the difference
between the classes of various cities, boroughs, first and second class
townships.

Another example where our society and culture has failed

Harold Geissenheimer


From: Fred Schneider <fschnei at supernet.com>
Sent: Jan 9, 2004 11:03 AM
To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
Subject: [PRCo] Re: Geography



Following up on Jim Swindler's comments:   And when Jim Henwood retired, he
was no longer able to get college students to pass the exams he gave 40 years
earlier to high school students in Marple Newtown High School in Delaware
County.   Our students, for whatever reason, have declined to consider
geography and history to be of any importance.  And there are many reasons.

The pathetic most pathetic comment I can add relates to an acquaintance who
was a geography teacher in a German gymnasium (academic high school).   He
pointed out that German kids are required to take geography in each and every
year of high school (not like here where most never get it).  I suggested that
they might be proficient enough to pass a mustering out exam that includes ten
countries chosen by the examiner at random  ... discuss politics, land forms,
transportation, communication, resources, exports, imports, history, etc.
Herbert's answer?  "That is our final exam in the last year."  That was
precisely what they needed to know in order to graduate.

And John Bromley's comment on language?  We write our newspapers for a 4th to
6th grade reading level (not that they will ever read it).  The German's write
their newspapers and news magazines on a 12th grade level, and people read
them.

Oh yes, his wife Eva, who taught English in Cuxhaven, Germany, had her seniors
working on Shakespeare.  They had had completed six years of English by that
time.  The Swiss require two foreign languages in high school.  And my wife
doesn't like to remember a person on the Lancaster City school board who
lobbied and succeeded in removing foreign languages from junior high because
her son failed a language test.

Pathetic.   Explains, does it not, why Daimler Chrysler decreed that English
would be the company's language even though the main office was in Stuttgart,
Germany.

Auf wiedersehen.  Au revoir,  Good bye.  (Aren't the German and French
expressions for good bye wonderful.    No finality to it.  They literally say,
"until [I] see you again."  And the Germans hang up the telephone with Auf
wiederhören --- until [I] hear again.)  What is said in the Solvak tongues,
Boris?

John Swindler wrote:

> Not just geography.  Another favorite story that Fred related several
> (many?) years ago concerns Jim Henwood, a college history professor. (at a
> Pennsylvania school - is that a close enough link for this list?)  Anyway,
> he would give incoming students a short test to get some sort of idea what
> the students knowledge base was of history from high school.  To the
> question: who was Thomas Jefferson, one student allegedly replied - was he
> one of the Jefferson Airplane?
>
> Well, I thought it was funny - and pathetic.
>
> John
>
> >From: Fred Schneider <fschnei at supernet.com>
> >Reply-To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
> >To: pittsburgh railways <pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org>,   Peter
> >Johansson <peter.johansson at ntlworld.com>
> >Subject: [PRCo] Geography
> >Date: Thu, 08 Jan 2004 20:47:48 -0500
> >
> >American Automobile Association (AAA Lancaster County) has become
> >geographically challenged.  Went in today and asked for a group of
> >tourguide books ... "everything from Alabama across the south to
> >California, up the west coast, and every book along the northern states
> >back to Minneapolis, then down to Chicago.  After staring blankly at me
> >for a half minute, the girl then said, "I'm new here.  What does that
> >mean?"
> >
> >Damn glad I didn't ask for a list of B&Bs between Berwick-upon-Tweed and
> >Dundee!
> >
> >For those in the dark, and JCS and EHL won't be, this all relates to a
> >National Geographic test (the second one back) in which people in the U.
> >S. scored second worst in the world ... ten questions about the
> >absolutely most simple geography in the world, such as the 'Persian Gulf
> >lies between Saudi Arabia and ___________' or 'In which continent does
> >the United States lie?'   After that test I decided to see if it was
> >true.  Ed, John and I were eating dinner in a restaurant in Hampton
> >Township, fewer than 10 miles west of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.  Just
> >for the hell of it I played with the waitress ... told her we were
> >traveling from Ohio to a meeting in Philadelphia and were unfamiliar
> >with this area ... and then asked her "Isn't the capital of Pennsylvania
> >somewhere in this area?"  The girl responded, "I'm not in school any
> >more.  I don't have to know."
> >I later found out that my niece, who was 17 at the time, was unable to
> >tell me which country borders the U. S. to the south.
> >
> >Sad, no?
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> Take advantage of our limited-time introductory offer for dial-up Internet
> access. http://join.msn.com/?page=dept/dialup