The Children Are Our Future

Here is the world's worst answer to such questions as "Are you sane or not." Honestly, this certainly looks like some sort of cruel Punk'd episode or Celebrity Jeopardy. Here's this girl, being asked why 1/5th of "US Americans" can't find the United States on a map. If I was in this pageant, my answer would be as follows:What's worse than that people can't find the US on a map is that people can list the last 2 DUI dates for Lindsay Lohan and the exact amount of days that Paris Hilton went to jail. I'm even guilty of being a font of absolutely worthless knowledge. It's why I like to compete against people on the TV screen during Jeopardy! If they weren't Ken Jennings, I could do pretty good because I know more miscellania than any 5 normal people. Of course, one of those little factoids is "where is the US on a map." What I really liked was the essay-style format of her answer. You could almost see her trying to compose a standard 5 paragraph essay on the spot. Of course, 5 paragraph essays went out of style long ago mainly because they suck. She rambled on for a full 30 seconds like Farah Fawcett did on Letterman a decade ago, not sure what was going on. The biggest difference is that Fawcett was probably on something, whereas our lovely contestant was just confused and disoriented.
What are we teaching people in school these days? I seem to recall the push to more and more academically rigid standards back when I was in high school with the groups younger than mine that forced them into tougher classes. Shouldn't one of these classes focus on things like "what does the US look like and where is it in relation to everywhere else?" How many people couldn't pick the Earth out of a solar system diorama? What about picking their state out of the US? How about their city in a state? Themselves in a picture of people? These are basics that everyone should know, and because they don't, Jeff Foxworthy has his own reality TV gameshow. For shame, US Americans, for shame. Buy yourselves a map.