Top of the class in England - but Polish boy goes home for better education

[Susi]

Like I said or perhaps didn't say clearly enough, geographic literacy is important. What are we if we don't know the world around us?

[Strengthandhonour]

But like M.R. said..what good is it to know the map if we don't know about the places?

[Heretik]

Ignorance is bliss.

[Pirate]

Originally Posted by Susi

Like I said or perhaps didn't say clearly enough, geographic literacy is important. What are we if we don't know the world around us?

Indeed it is, but not pushed to extreme, the opposite extreme of not knowing where Germany is, is that you have to know where exactly is Butan and where is Burkina Faso. It's even more useless since we didn't learn anything specific about the two countries...

[Susi]

Originally Posted by Strengthandhonour

But like M.R. said..what good is it to know the map if we don't know about the places?

Originally Posted by M.R.

Indeed it is, but not pushed to extreme, the opposite extreme of not knowing where Germany is, is that you have to know where exactly is Butan and where is Burkina Faso. It's even more useless since we didn't learn anything specific about the two countries...

What isn't understood here is that geography isn't just naming countries on maps. If it was, I'd already have my degree.

A person who is geographically literate knows both where the country is and a general idea of what it is as well.

[Menydh]

I think that you are missing the matter of the issue by trying to excuse England blindly.

I'm sure that there is a part of small town boy chauvinism in the telling of the Polish boy.

But this is not a question of English being dumber and Poles smarter. It is a question of education going down the drain, in England as well as everywhere else in Europe. There is no a culture-orientation in education anymore. More and more, education is being directed towards the specialisation model. The mass entry-levels in university are also a part of this model.

All in all, a tragedy that brings people back to a new dark age. Soon we'll have nothing to laugh at Americans, because we will be no better than them.

[Strengthandhonour]

Originally Posted by Susi

What isn't understood here is that geography isn't just naming countries on maps. If it was, I'd already have my degree.

A person who is geographically literate knows both where the country is and a general idea of what it is as well.

and I think you miss the point that to most people geography is just pointing things on the map, not knowing them. Like you said, we would all have geography degrees

[Susi]

Originally Posted by Menydh

But this is not a question of English being dumber and Poles smarter. It is a question of education going down the drain, in England as well as everywhere else in Europe. There is no a culture-orientation in education anymore. More and more, education is being directed towards the specialisation model. The mass entry-levels in university are also a part of this model.

This model is stupid because it assumes that everyone is the same. It assumes they all are intelligent enough to go through university.

It is education as an industry.

All in all, a tragedy that brings people back to a new dark age. Soon we'll have nothing to laugh at Americans, because we will be no better than them.

I'm sure there will still be something to laugh at..

edit: In any case what I want to get at is what Menydh said -- it's basically the same in other places too. ;_;

[Sarmata]

Originally Posted by Menydh

I think that you are missing the matter of the issue by trying to excuse England blindly.

I'm sure that there is a part of small town boy chauvinism in the telling of the Polish boy.

But this is not a question of English being dumber and Poles smarter. It is a question of education going down the drain, in England as well as everywhere else in Europe. There is no a culture-orientation in education anymore. More and more, education is being directed towards the specialisation model. The mass entry-levels in university are also a part of this model.

All in all, a tragedy that brings people back to a new dark age. Soon we'll have nothing to laugh at Americans, because we will be no better than them.

Agree "new dark age" is coming . I think that education system in West is also adapt to "aliens" from every part of the world and their different cultures etc. And I know my wifes cousine who live from her birth(she is about 18 now) in Germany and I think she is very poor educated...for instance she didn't know nothing about Greek mithology such names as "Zeus" etc. but she also tried teach me about tolerance for homosexuals

[Marcus Marulus]

Originally Posted by Sarmata

Agree "new dark age" is coming.

It is already here.

Originally Posted by Sarmata

I think that education system in West is also adapt to "aliens" from every part of the world and their different cultures etc.

The general degradation of the education is totally unrelated to the advent of aliens into European countries. It is fruit of efforts to forge a new one-dimensional superficial man of the last phase of modernity (started 30 or something years ago).

Originally Posted by Sarmata

but she also tried teach me about tolerance for homosexuals

Important topic indeed.

[Savorgnan]

Originally Posted by Menydh

Soon we'll have nothing to laugh at Americans, because we will be no better than them.

Soon? No, this is already the case. Young Zeropeans basically are Americans, without a US passport. The process of deculturation is achieved, the harm is done.

[Pirate]

Originally Posted by Savorgnan

Soon? No, this is already the case. Young Zeropeans basically are Americans, without a US passport. The process of deculturation is achieved, the harm is done.

Only in bigger European cities, IMHO. But there never was much worth of preserving there anyway, at least not here.