When I attended grade school from 1942 to 1947, in addition to the 3 R's, we were also taught Geography. I became so interested in Geography that my parents gave me a jigsaw puzzle of the United States, with the name of each State and its Capitol on every piece of the puzzle. I became so good at assembling the puzzle that I recognized every State from its shape, plus the Capitols of all 48 States. During geography quizzes, I always got 'em all correct! Hal
Knowing how to say specified areas is just as important as knowing where they are. For example: how does one pronounce the capital of Kentucky: Looisville....or ......loois vul...or.....Looee vul ?
Geography was a common subject through grade eight. Since we didn't move from room to room, or from class to class, as in high school, I don't know if it was considered to be a class or merely a subject. We did get grades in Geography, I know. Later, it was supposedly wrapped into Social Studies and History, and then History was wrapped into Social Studies, while, in effect, both were pretty much ignored. I know we were asked to place each country in its position on a map of the world, and to memorize the capitals of each country, as well as a few other details, such as languages and so on.
Until 5 years ago, I didn't know Singapore was a country. I thought it was a big city in Japan. Seriously.
QUOTE="Bobby Cole, post: 350005, member: 5"]Knowing how to say specified areas is just as important as knowing where they are. For example: how does one pronounce the capital of Kentucky: Looisville....or ......loois vul...or.....Looee vul ?[/QUOTE] I worked for a company headquartered in Louisville. I heard "Lull-vull" a lot.
I don't know if it's still there but the city of Burnet, Texas had a sign at the city limits that read: IT'S BURNET DURN IT
Didn't realize how geographically challenged I was until After I joined the Navy .After boot camp my 1st. duty station was Argentia, Newfoundland. No clue about where that was. From there to jet engine school in Memphis, Tenn. Knew where Tenn. was. A year later after jet engine school Roosevelt Roads Naval base in Ceiba, Puerto Rico. No clue again, but someone thought it was in the tropics where grass skirts & luaus were. Navy lived up to see the world & learn.
When my youngest son went into the service he was asked how close his home was to the Arctic Circle. Living in Maine apparently is like living in Eskimo land. I started learning geography when in grade school. When ever we, as a family, went anywhere it was my responsibility to remember how we got there so that we could repeat the trip some day.
Outside of the basics of any grade in school, when I married my husband Johnny. I had no interest in geography until he said he was born and raised in Forrest City, Arkansas and served in the Navy. Of course not knowing or recalling any geography learned in school I had a lot of 'where is that?' questions. He watched a lot of tourism programs recalling places toured and lived while in the Navy. May first lesson was learning north, south, east, and west when we traveled to his hometown. I'll never forget how frightened I was when we drove across the Mississippi River.