Where are you came form?

[Dragan]

Hi, did you all here people came from Canada? I came form Serbia, do you know where is that country (Serbia)?

[Nick]

I believe south of Russia, and yes I am Canadian

[Dragan]

@nick, no, guess again.

[btiffin]

Georgian Bay; part of Lake Huron, one of the Great Lakes.

Dragan; For a good view of how well North Americans know geography, check out this awesome video, Miss Teen South Carolina. So sad it's hilarious.

I was once involved with interviewing a lady from Bosnia for a COBOL position. She still appreciates getting the job and we chat on a semi-regular basis. (She was the only candidate that could answer my "What is PIC 88 used for?" question.)

Cheers

[Mackie]

I live near Toronto.

[Dragan]

I saw that video and it is hilarious, why you don't learn geography in your schools? In my country I was learnig where are all countries of world and its capital cities.
Question is still here where are you came from and do you know where is Serbia?


ps. @btffin , did she get that job?

[btiffin]

And Nick; no personal offence intended. I'm old and I would have responded "yeah, kinda" to the South of Russia answer. Few North Americans have a fair grasp of the world map. imho. So sad it's hilarious.

Only adding this, as when I reread the thread it sounded like I was picking on Nick. Not the intent. I thought he was right (kinda). Sorry Nick.

[CodeMonkey2000]

btiffin @ Sun Apr 13, 2008 5:13 pm wrote:

Dragan; For a good view of how well North Americans know geography, check out this awesome video, Miss Teen South Carolina. So sad it's hilarious.

The worst part was the she went on to the top 5. If I were the judge I would have disqualified her for intellectual incompetence. By the way, I'm from India.

[btiffin]

Dragan @ Sun Apr 13, 2008 5:29 pm wrote:

I saw that video and it is hilarious, why you don't learn geography in your schools? In my country I was learnig where are all countries of world and its capital cities.
Question is still here where are you came from and do you know where is Serbia?


ps. @btffin , did she get that job?

Yes she did; going on 10 years ago now. Good coder too. And she takes no guff; part of being a good programmer, in my humble opinion. And as I've said; North Americans (I'm Canadian, so I'll say we do a better job than out neighbours to the south, but I'm biased by pride) do a fairly poor job of teaching ourselves world history and geography.

Cheers

[Dan]

It should be noted that Canada, the Uninted States and Mexcio are all very diffrent conuntrys and lumping them in to one catgory does not make much sence epstaly if you are crtizing there eudcation systems all together. There is no north amrican union and realy the only collective agrrment btween the conutrys is NAFTA (free trade), the goverments, cluters and education system are very diffrent.

Canada is much more socilasit then the Uninted States and has an education system in canada is more hevealy fundend by the goverment and results in a very diffrent educational experince and cirulem. Mexico is even more radicaly diffrent then the two and is even more reduiceless to put in the same group in terms of education.

The video btiffin links to is from some one from the unitned states and is of a person who is not exctaely repersentive of the avaerge person there. Also the magorty of the users from this site are from canada (a diffrent country tho on the same content) so using that as proof that we don't learn geogrpahy in our schools is even more invaild.

Simpley studing the polictal divdions that defined the boundrys of countrys and there capitals is not that usefull if you totaly ignore the diffrence in scoicities and culters that define them witch you seem to be as if you did you might have know the canadaians easly take offence to being compared the uninted states, epstaly in terms of education, intengelce, goverment or clutercher.

Grouping all of north amrica together and saying why don't you learn geogrpahy would be like grouping all of europe together and asking why you all speak with british acentes.

Also it is unrealstic to think that every person should know exctaly where every country in the world is off the top of there head. A much more imporent geogrpahy realted skill whould be being able to use a map of atalist to find any place on the erath. Obvesly some countyrs and dvidions like contenets are large enought that every one should know, however asking exctaly exctaly where serbia is with out using a map would be like me asking you exctaly where the Yukon (an area almost 5.5 time bigger then serbia) or New Brunswick (an area about the same size of serbia) is with out being fimualr with canada.

Any how thats my rant about it.


Edit: Also Serbia is tehcnaily south of russia if you ignore the west/east compoent..... Tho saying in southeastern europe would be more acurrite.

[btiffin]

Dan @ Sun Apr 13, 2008 6:04 pm wrote:

Grouping all of north amrica together and saying why don't you learn geogrpahy would be like grouping all of europe together and asking why you all speak with british acentes.

Also it is unrealstic to think that every person should know exctaly where every country in the world is off the top of there head. A much more imporent geogrpahy realted skill whould be being able to use a map of atalist to find any place on the erath. Obvesly some countyrs and dvidions like contenets are large enought that every one should know, however asking exctaly exctaly where serbia is with out using a map would be like me asking you exctaly where the Yukon (an area almost 5.5 time bigger then serbia) or New Brunswick (an area about the same size of serbia) is with out being fimualr with canada.

Any how thats my rant about it.

Not that I'm a huge fan of diss'ing entire cultures, but being part of the target of disrespect seems to make it a little more ok.

Not to offend Dan, but yeah I lump all of North America in as a group re World Geography. Like this snippet (limited, probably a little biased but I found it quickly) from a National Geographic Survey from 6 years ago (similar to the more recent poll, but didn't have the same oommph of quote).

Quoted from National Geographic
Americans ages 18 to 24 came in next to last among nine countries in the National Geographic-Roper 2002 Global Geographic Literacy Survey, which quizzed more than 3,000 young adults in Canada, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Sweden, and the United States. Top scorers were young adults in Sweden, Germany, and Italy.

Out of 56 questions that were asked across all countries surveyed, on average young Americans answered 23 questions correctly. Others outside the U.S., most notably young adults in Mexico, also struggled with basic geography facts. Young people in Canada and Great Britain fared almost as poorly as those in the U.S.

We have work to do, imho. And this is partly due to our being blessed with so much fun stuff to do, that we don't rate world History or Geography high on the list.

And the Miss Teen video, excuse the reference; it is the very tip of an iceberg, perhaps not fair ... but still hilarious. Asked today, I'm sure she'd beat most test scores quite soundly as I can only assume the event prompted her to study up a little.

And to be fair to Dragan's thread and hopefully not derail its direction. It's a good question ... where we come from.
Cheers

[Sean]

Sadly, I live in the same town as Mackie.

Naw, joking. It's all in good fun.

Mackie, you can tell Gillard that there is a Geocache that she can look for. It's located across the street in the park.

[Dan]

Your not dissing an entire culture but an entiere content of the world that has many cultures and being part of that content dose not make any better.

So peoleop that come from smaller comuntrys that are srowuned by more countrys know more about there local georgrphy then ones that come from larger countrys that are soruned by one or two countrys? What a shock. As i mentioned befor i wonder if thess students from eurpoe know where the provices of canada or states of amarica are as most are larger in size then the countrys they are being tested on.

This comprason is as vaild as me saying peoleop not from north amarica don't know english. Aren't you guys taught english in school? (And yes i see the irony in me saying this.)


Tho to get back on topic as you sugest i currently live in Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada. I was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.

[OneOffDriveByPoster]

I am from Scarborough, part of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. I was born in Hong Kong. I am currently living elsewhere (attending University).

[md]

Dragan @ 2008-04-13, 5:06 pm wrote:

@nick, no, guess again.

Actual, right. It IS south of Russia, and a bit to the west. Situated between Bosnia and Romania.
But then, I did the smart thing and confirmed where I thought it was with a map before posting. Even I can't remember exactly where every country is all the time