Under education of American youth: Why don’t American students know Geography?

Photo of author
Written By Albert V. Burns

under-education-of-american-youth-why-dont-american-students-know-geographyA National Geographic survey has recently caused consternation among those who have a real interest in the education of the youth of the United States. That survey, which was a test of the geographic knowledge of youth of many nations. The young people of this country displayed an abysmal ignorance of the most basic facts of world geography and even of the geography of their own nation.

According to the survey, only one out of seven Americans between the ages of 18 and 24 could find Iraq or Iran on a world map. Despite so much comment in the news lately about Afghanistan only 58 percent were aware of that nation and ONLY 17 percent could find it on the map!

Displaying even greater ignorance, when asked to find ten U.S. states on the map, only 89 percent could find Texas and California and only 51 percent could locate New York. When asked to locate sixteen countries on a world map, these geographic ‘wide-awakes’ could only find seven of the sixteen. Twenty nine percent couldn’t find the diminutive PACIFIC OCEAN! Eleven percent couldn’t even find their own country, the UNITED STATES on the world map!

How to account for such ignorance? These youth had been through high school and many had had some college time. Were they ALL so stupid that they had not learned what the schools were teaching? Hardly!

The problem is that the schools HAVE NOT REALLY BEEN TEACHING GEOGRAPHY for the past 40 or 50 years. That is a radical charge and needs to be backed up with evidence to show how the present situation did not come about by happenstance but was actually PLANNED many years ago. The roots of the change go back even further than that.

The name John Dewey is known to everyone who has any knowledge of education in the U.S. Even before the beginning of the 1900s, Dewey was preaching that education must destroy the “individualistic” tendencies of youth and make them more “group oriented.” His theories were tried, with disastrous results, in an experimental school at the University of Chicago before 1900. Undeterred by the failure of that trial, he moved to Teacher’s College at Columbia University in 1904. Once there, he became the dominant figure in American education and teacher training in the U.S. You can judge the measure of that influence in that by the early 1960s better than 40% of the heads of teachers colleges in this country had received advanced degrees from Columbia University.

Dewey’s “progressive education” which started out to change HOW children were taught very quickly became a campaign to change WHAT was being taught. Both changes had devastating effects on American education.

Two of Dewey’s disciples were Dr. George Counts and Dr. Harold Rugg. Counts was the research head of a 17 volume study of American education which took five years to complete and which was financed by the Carnegie Foundation. The well-known British socialist, Harold Laski, certainly no enemy of Counts, stated of that study that: “At bottom and stripped of its carefully neutral phrases, the report is an educational program for a socialist America.”

In 1932, Counts wrote an article “Dare The School Build A New Social Order?” In that piece he stated that he believed: “That the teachers should deliberately reach for power and then make the most of their conquest is my firm conviction. To the extent that they are permitted to fashion the curriculum and procedures of the school they will definitely and positively influence the social attitudes, ideals and behavior of the coming generation.” The drive was implemented in two directions: they rewrote the textbooks and also gained total control of the National Education Association.

Dr. Harold Rugg, was instrumental in the rewriting of the textbooks. The ideas in the 17 volume study were implemented by the expedient of lumping the teaching of history, geography, economics, political science, etc. into one polyglot, amorphous course called “Social Studies.” With this mish-mash of subject matter it was an exceedingly easy matter to insert socialist doctrine, delete embarrassing information about socialist failure, slant other material and generally indoctrinate students without it being obvious to the casual observer.

The programs were so biased that eventually Congress officially investigated what was being done and the socialists backed off – for awhile! At the end of the Second World War, they came roaring back with a vengeance. A nine volume study from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) became the blueprint for brainwashing American students till one day their first allegiance would shift from the United States to a one world socialist government. That study received the official backing of President Truman’s Commission on Higher Education (and every administration since!) That commission, in 1947, recommended that: “The role which education will play officially must be conditioned essentially by policies established in the State Department in this country, and by ministries of foreign policy in other countries….The United States Office of Education must be prepared to work with the State Department and with UNESCO.” (Emphasis added.)

The goal of UNESCO was blatantly apparent in the first volume when it directed that children must be educated in: “…those qualities of citizenship which provide the foundation upon which international government must be based if it is to succeed.” UNESCO went on to point out that, especially in the lower grades, schools must “correct” the injurious influences of the home on the child. It made it clear that part of such parental influence was the encouragement of patriotism in the child. As a means of overcoming such “injurious influences” schools were encouraged to “de-emphasize” the teaching of American history and geography. It was clear that they understood that if a child was taught a valid knowledge of our history and geography he would very likely develop an understanding of the vast superiority of the American system of government and economics over those of any other part of the world.

Even in the teaching of the history and geography of other countries problems were foreseen in that learning of other countries would cause students to reach the same conclusion about the superiority of the United States. UNESCO therefore enjoined teachers to hide that truth from their students: “Certain delicate problems, however, will arise in these studies and explorations. Not everything in foreign ways of living can be presented to children in an attractive light. At this stage, though, the systematic examination of other countries and manners can be postponed, and the teacher need seek only to insure that his children appreciate, through abundant and judicious examples, that foreign countries, too, possess things of beauty, and that many of them resemble the beauty and interest of his own country. A child taught thus about the different countries of the world will gradually lose those habits of prejudice and contempt which are an impediment to world-mindedness.”

The whole drive was toward a deliberate “under education” of American youth. If they didn’t know of the accomplishments of the United States and the failures of the rest of the world they would be much more receptive to a world government.

Our youth and young adults don’t know U.S. or world geography (or history, either) for the simple reason that it was systematically removed from the curriculum of our schools. For a brief period, the United States withdrew from UNESCO because of apparent financial problems in that organization. NOW, the Bush administration is pushing for the United States to again participate in that organization and its programs. How long will the American people remain blind? WHAT will it take to stir them from their lethargy?

Published originally at EtherZone.com : republication allowed with this notice and hyperlink intact.”

Leave a Comment