United3dArtists Archive

A country that begins with U: "Europe" That really made me laugh.

you can find more of this... ppl in US usually things that europe is country, they never heard of many europian countries and as i see, they even dont know anything about USA itself. Thats "the biggest" country in the world? :D sorry

nice video, man.

bitkar wrote:you can find more of this... ppl in US usually things that europe is country, ...

Yep. Real studies (although often faulty or designed to get the results wanted) are just sad. This video shows what they didn't know but what kids do "know" is sad too -- garbage in, garbage out (look at your kid's school books). Good thing he didn't ask math or science questions. I liked this video though because it is just entertaining. It also shows that the smart kids do know these things ... but, I wonder if they learned it in school.

Finis wrote:... but, I wonder if they learned it in school.

Good point, many schools lack the knowledge of how to properly teach students what they need to know, even here in Sweden. I am a great example of this, I always found English to be one of the most boring subjects in school. My English grades at age 11 were terrible, age 12: same, age 13: same, age 14: same, etc. Surprisingly I could probably already speak somewhat proper English at age 13 and understand movies without subtitles at age 14/15. Most people would probably think I had a learning disability or something but I got bad grades because the tasks were to easy or just completely irrelevant and boring. It wasn't until age 16 in highschool I got a chance to prove my real knowledge in English where I got top grades, even in English B (I guess you could call that advanced English).
So how did I learn to speak and understand English so well? the answer is Terry Pratchett I've listened to the Discworld series by Terry Prachett on audio books since I was 13/14 (this is a brilliant series btw, I recommend it to everybody). Also, I can imagine most people in foreign countries learn most of their English by watching a lot of Hollywood movies.
So yeah, there are so many other ways to learn without doing it the way schools think works best, because there isn't such a thing, each student has his own way of learning and even though the system works for most, it definitely doesn't work for all. Probably half of my class in highschool got really low or no grades because they just weren't interested in what was being said...

Damn... That turned out to be quite a long post.

bitkar wrote: they never heard of many europian countries and as i see, they even dont know anything about USA itself.

To be fair, how many US states can you name on an unlabeled map?

This video could just as easily been made in any European high school.
Teenagers around the world usually have other things on their mind...geography is way down the list of things they are thinking about!

spacekdet wrote:To be fair, how many US states can you name on an unlabeled map?

To be fair? So all the countries in Europe can just be compared with states? That doesn't really seem fair at all. Some Americans have a very America-centered view of the world, I know one guy, very smart, especially for a "teenager", still... he didn't even have a clue where Holland was when I told him that was where I'm from.

I'm not comparing anything. (but feel free!)
Substitute 'unlabeled African countries' or 'Antarctic zones' or 'South American countries' for US States if it makes you feel better.
Geographical ineptitude knows no boundaries. That was my point.

Huh, didn't mean to start a big controversy. I just thought the video was entertaining. It is a neat project for a kid to do and the kids had personalities. Obviously, he just interviewed some kids and wasn't trying for a valid study. Still, I'd think any American kid would know how many states there are. Note that correct answers were not rare. I wondered if the kids learned those things in school partly because of doubts about the schools but also because several of those things are common topics on TV, newspapers, and in conversation.

I'm not pleased with the quality of education now days but there are many factors in determining what is satisfactory and in making comparisons.

Spacekdet makes good points about kids interests and that you'll get similar results in other countries too. Also, it is good to ask "can I answer that?" The math and science scores and poor reasoning ability bothers me. Bitkar hits on another thing that bothers me. I agree that our kids don't know enough about our own country. Mikom: most people I know are quite knowledgeable about other countries but they are not "most people". Generally I think you are right that Americans are Ameri-centric but I think most people (worldwide) are not curious beyond their own immediate needs and wants.

Here's a funny one. I lived in Paris, Texas (where I was born) as a small child. My family would sometimes drive to the town of Texarkana. Until I was 10 I thought that the state of Louisiana was called "Texarkana".

i have to agree with mikom :)

spacekdt: i can name my country regions (and bigger cities) with no problems. I can even name some of the USA states on blind map tho Iam not from US and i have never been there. Those kids were born in US, i suppose. Something is wrong. Dont you think?
Btw: some americans still think that there is Czechoslovakia (cz and sk split in 1993) and i saw some video where the question was, where is the Czech Republic... and ppl said "in africa" ! That is alarming. At least they could know that there are not only US and there exist some other countries and that CZ is somewhere in europe, not africa, not asia. At least the continent. Maybe i could forgive knowledge about some veeeery small countries that are as big as average city. But not a regular state right in the middle of europe. And not knowing your own country is odd.

but sure, education and interests of students goes down everywhere. And its good to learn yourself when you are interested in something. My english doesnt come from school classes only. Mostly i learned from PC games, movies, internet... world is full of english, so its not a problem. Learning japanese by myself is much worse :D (its +10h timezone difference and japanese ppl are very busy... and you dont see japanese everywhere as english)
and the same truespace, i learned it by myself, not at school, luckily :)

watch this video i liked ;)

bitkar wrote: Btw: some americans still think that there is Czechoslovakia

What is a Bohemian to do?...

That vid is hilarious Bitkar!

Steinie wrote:

bitkar wrote: Btw: some americans still think that there is Czechoslovakia

What is a Bohemian to do?...

i dont get this sentance, not sure if i understand... but will try to answer. Czech Republic is made of Bohemia (bigger western part) and Moravia (smaller eastern part). These are more like historical areas (that exist of course even nowadays). There are minor differences between ppl from moravia and bohemia, little different dialect etc. It doesnt have much geopolitical influence, its just like a name of place.
Anyway, good to know that you heard about it :)
(I guess that u3Da will feature more educated ppl in general, have no doubts and i wasnt trying to offend anyone)

if you want to know more about history (shape and borders) of czech, slovakian and other related countries, i know about a good video on youtube. There you can see how it changed thru hundrets of years untill today. Which part belonged to CZ etc. (like czechoslovakia had also part of ukraine and poland in some periods).

Funny video bitkar.

For us Austrians there is a big difference between the two since most of our grandparents come from Bohemia
including my own !
Peter

haha, ya, most of czechs emigrated to austria because of comunist... :) (and we share some history, cz as a part of austria) so austrians are half-czechs :D you are welcome, bro ;))

ps: you can find czechs everywhere, because of comunists... even usa, there is a city called Prague or New Prague :D so its like czech colony ;p

Maybe this will help us all overcome our preconceived notions of other countries! :bananacheers:


...

lol, epic :D

Those images are the bomb!