I’ve seen multiple videos equivalent of Americans pointing where (country) is on the map, and there was an instance where the host asked the woman where the continent Africa is located (points to Asia) like WTF? That’s not even close at all.
I know there’s bias towards those types of videos since there are accusations of the host “handpicking” select strangers framing them as if they are representative of the US. But the truth is that their education system isn’t good as it lacks funding.
When you put it into perspective: how many Europeans can correctly locate & name countries adjacent to them within their own continent and globally? Is the education system within the EU that good or effective at teaching kids that subject?
They’re more diverse, no question there, but that’s for nothing to do with memorized lines on a map, which is what we’re talking about, I thought?
What lines? Because there are no lines inside the USA when looking at a world map.
I can’t help but wonder if this whole argument is related to the fact that many US-based maps and globes tend to show the outlines of each US state as well. It confused the hell out of me as a kid. I’d see each state outlined and colored differently on maps, and think that the countries in Europe or Africa were also states. When my parents pointed out that no, those are countries, I’d ask why the US states were shown the same way, but other countries didn’t show their states (or equivalent boundaries.) Never did get a good answer.
Someone growing up seeing their states depicted equally to how other countries are depicted, on the same map, could easily think the differences are equally important between US states as between countries. If you grow up being told your country is the best in the world, and even globes make a point to show how important your different states in particular are, it’s not surprising that someone could come away thinking the differences between Arkansas and Michigan are just as important as the differences between Finland and Bulgaria.
Do other countries have their own maps/globes that highlight only their own states/provinces/etc. but not the subdivided territories for other countries?
I’m really not sure if this is just folks not understanding that there’s differences in how things are taught between countries, or if it’s just willful ignorance.
My only familiarity with European school systems is what I’ve been told, so you can feel free to correct me if this is incorrect, but my understanding is that at the same grade level where Europeans are learning the European countries, Americans are learning the US states. It’s even roughly the same number of data points to learn. Just because the map you selected doesn’t show these particular lines on the map does not mean they don’t exist, and US states are, purely in terms of land area and population, about equivalent to European countries.
To head off the objection before it comes, we also learn the counties and important cities in our own states, which would be the equivalent of learning subdivisions of European countries.
This is the thing. I had the differences in our education explained to me as in Europe we get shallow knowledge on a broad spectrum while in the US you get deep knowledge on a narrow spectrum. So we learn about others, you learn about you. 😄
And to add to that, of course we learn about our own regions and communes additionally.
We simply define “us” and “others” differently. You can kind of think of the US like the EU, and the states as the individual member countries; they’re not too dissimilar, except that the federal government has more power than the EU as a whole does. Our state divisions are (to us) equivalent to the country divisions in the EU. Each has its own population, its own laws, its own governing body, its own culture. States don’t have particularly much in common with each other in many cases. Even very close by states - take Maine and Massachusetts for example (two states I’ve lived in, and can therefore comment on). Very different vibe between the two; very distinctly different accents, different mannerisms, different customs. They each have stereotypes about the other. ‘Masshole’ is a slur that’s not too uncommon to hear in Maine, usually referring to drivers from Massachusetts who’re visiting.
Europeans (broadly speaking, based on the comments in this thread specifically) seem to think state lines are fairly arbitrary but it’s definitely not the case. I’m not sure why you (seem to) feel that learning about other states is somehow “lesser” than learning about other countries in the EU or Europe as a whole. The US covers a land area more than twice as large as the EU, and has just under twice as many states as the EU has countries. The US population is about 75% of the population of the entire EU. Somehow, though, learning about that is treated (in this thread) like Germans learning about Germany to the exclusion of all else.
Absolutely not. You can make a comparison with other federations like Germany or Switzerland maybe, but the EU is a very different political entity.
This is true in all European countries as well, no matter how tiny.
See, this is what you seem to miss. We learn about other countries. We learn about yours as well, but not on a much deeper scale than where it is, its capitol and its political system. And well, it seems like some in Europe learn about your states as well, which is more than we do for other countries. I couldn’t name more than a couple of ‘states’ in my neighbouring countries and that I have learned as an adult.
I don’t understand why you seem to think that size and population somehow would grant you extra interest. If that was the case India, Russia, Canada and China would all be more interesting than the US and we don’t give those extra attention.
Look, I feel like we’re not really getting anywhere with this… we’re kind of just rehashing the same arguments and not really seeing eye to eye. I don’t think I’m getting my points across effectively, or perhaps you’re simply misunderstanding what I’m trying to say and that’s fine, but we’ve drifted pretty far from the original topic. The US and European countries differ quite a bit in education and values, I think we’ve established that much, but it seems like we’re drifting into ‘My country is better! No, my country is better!’ territory which I really don’t want to do. Let’s just agree that they’re different, and leave it at that.
OP asked about continents and countries, US states are neither. IMO, it’s about how relevant the entity is - US states simply aren’t as important as countries.
And I bet most Europeans can name and roughly locate more US states than most USians can name and roughly locate European states, anyway.
States are more important to Americans than European countries are, when it comes to knowing where things are, because Americans interact with other states with the same regularity that Europeans interact with other countries. The point that I’m trying to make, which seems to be being largely ignored, is that comparing American knowledge of European geography to European knowledge of European geography is just as disingenuous a comparison as comparing European knowledge of US states to American knowledge of US states.
The problem is that you’re bringing fort that point by making a terrible comparison. This is about countries which US states are not.
A better comparison would have been that Americans have better knowledge about the Caribbean islands than Europe and that Europeans does the opposite.
See, I don’t think that that distinction is nearly as important as you do. It’s more about the number of things to name in a given area. Expecting Americans to know all 50 US states is roughly equivalent to expecting Europeans to know all ~50(ish?) European countries. The distinction between states is far more important to our day to day lives than anything in Europe is.
You hit the nail on the head there mate.