Re: [OT] Brits try to identify the 50 US states on a map

On Feb 6, 2025 at 3:29:56 PM PST, "Rhino" <no_offline_contact@example.com>
wrote:

On 2025-02-06 1:19 AM, anim8rfsk wrote:

 Rhino <no_offline_contact@example.com> wrote:

 On 2025-02-05 6:07 PM, anim8rfsk wrote:

 Rhino <no_offline_contact@example.com> wrote:

 
 What about the 50 states? Could you label all of them correctly given a
 blank map?

 
 That was actually something we had to do as a test in either late grade
 school or early high school.
 
 So I could've done it 55 years ago, but I doubt I'd get more than half of
 them now. I'd be able to fill in the borders like doing a jigsaw puzzle,
 but the middle would remain empty.
 
 This is the perfect example of the stuff we complained about learning in
 school that we would never ever need to know and we were right.
 

 I wonder if we were wise beyond our years or just too lazy to want to
 work that hard for something that didn't seem useful to know....
 
 In any case it really isn't particularly useful to be able to identify
 all 50 states EXCEPT for random quizzes like this one. Education systems
 should not be geared towards teaching useless stuff.

 

 
 But boy howdy are they ever.
 
 Like "to be or not to be" from Hamlet. We had to memorize it and got points
 for each line of it we could write down in a pop quiz. But none of it meant
 a thing to us.
 

We had to do a Shakespeare every year of high school and I don't
remember ANYONE enjoying it: we just did our best to endure it.
 
I know that almost EVERYONE says he's the greatest writer ever - even
people I respect enormously like Solzhenitsyn - but I've never really
understood why Shakespeare is thought to be so brilliant.
 
I suspect Shakespeare is taught mostly because of his reputation and the
idea/hope that if they inflict Shakespeare on every single student, some
of his insight will be magically transferred to the student and make him
a better person.
 
I might appreciate him more as an adult if I were to give him another
try but I'd still need one of the high school editions where the
"translations" (explanations of the words he's using) are on every line,
otherwise I suspect it would be akin to reading Sanskrit.

Heathen!

Ignorance is the curse of God;
Knowledge the wing wherewith we fly to heaven.

--Henry VI, Part 1