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I am posting about this issue here because I was not able to post about the issue in the video section. Although I had seen that there was a video concerning one of the contestents from the Miss Teen USA Pagent, I was not interested in it until this morning. Earlier this morning the Today Show interviewed the girl from South Carolina. It was at that time that I actually learned what had happened at the pagent. I do not think the girl from the Miss Teen USA Pagent herself is crazy, but what this situation shows is crazy.
How in the world do one-fifth of Americans not know how to locate the United States of America on a map? Do people not ever look at maps these days? I really think that some of these people had to just be joking. Some of these people must have just decided to be silly a pretend they could not find America on a map. I do not see how that many Americans could not find America on a map; it is their country. I understand not being able to find foreign countries on a map, but not being able to find your own country on a map is just crazy.
In terms of the girl, I am not trying to be mean to her or prop myself up, but there should not be any excuses on how/why she could not answer that question. She is 18 years old; I could have answered that question when I was about 15 years old. I know I could have come up with a good answer for that question before I graduated from high school.
So, since I have talked about how I could have answered that question, here is my answer. "It is extremely sad and horrible that it is possible that one-fifth of Americans cannot find America, their own country, on a map. First, it should be made mandatory that all students, at least by the time they have entered high school, will have taken or will take a Geography class. Second, since it seems that learning to speak in public helps young people it should be mandatory...there should be an effort to put speech and debate teams in all high schools across America. Finally, just for good measure it might be a good idea to get kids or find a way to get kids politically engaged in that it seems that people, even kids/young people who are politically engaged tend to be more curious about the world and want to learn more about the world. Therefore, more people may be interested in looking at a map and finding out where places are located."
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