People Don’t Know about the World

Honestly, the most stunning thing I’ve noticed while living in the United States is that lack of knowledge some people have when it comes to countries around the world. Now, I am absolutely not accusing everyone of this as I know there are a lot of people here that really do understand the surrounding world. However, I’ve encountered many instances while living here in which people seem to miss just basic knowledge of the world.

I first noticed this after moving to the states in 3rd grade as people started to call my home continent, Africa, a country. And I’m not just talking about young people in my grade. Adults and teachers in my school would make this same mistake. There are 54 countries in Africa, and none of these people seemed to understand that. Or there was another time in 5th grade where I argued with classmates and my teacher about whether or not India was in Asia. If India isn’t in Asia, then where is it?, I thought. I’m sure the people in that class would have also been surprised to hear that countries like Pakistan, or Iraq were also Asian countries. Lastly, I recall hearing the comment I’ll always remember in 8th grade. One of my closest friends asked me, “Are there planes in Zambia (Where I come from)?” I was so shocked because he asked that completely seriously. I mean, how else would I have gotten to America?

Now, I do not in any way blame these people for their lack of knowledge. Truly, it’s not their fault. Rather, after living in the United States for so long, I believe this problem stems from the way schools handle global education. Students in school are just not given a better global understanding.

Global Education

Growing up, it confused me why I had to take so many different American History classes. Hadn’t I already learned the same things in previous years? Why weren’t we spending more time on learning about the history of countries across the world. Or the current events happening in other places. Now, I understand because we live in America, there is a natural tendency to focus on our history. Although, I feel like a greater emphasis needs to be placed on building students’ global understanding.

In 2016, the Council on Foreign Relations gave a Global Literacy Survey to 1,203 college educated Americans between the ages 18 and 26. This test asked them questions on geography, demographics, recent international news, etc. On average, people answered 55% of the questions on it correctly. Now, it’s not expected that people know everything about the world and United States foreign relations. But, it seems these people never even got the chance to learn about these things growing up.

Additionally, there is a segment done by show host, Jimmy Kimmel, called, “Can You Name a Country?“. He goes around the streets and asks people whether they can name any country on a world map, and often times, they are unable to do so. It’s crazy to see that people are unable to do something like this.

The education system in America needs to do a better job at getting kids to understand the world around them. This will build leaders for the future who will not only care about America, but how we affect the rest of the world. This will also give people a better understanding of others that come from different countries.