(no subject)

[deckardcanine]

Congratulations to Bonny Jain, latest winner of the National Geography Bee.

This is actually the first time I can remember seeing an announcement of the NGB results. Maybe the upcoming documentary will increase its popularity, but I don't expect the same mini-flurry that Spellbound produced. Not even Alex Trebek can help it draw more viewers than the National Spelling Bee, for at least two reasons: (1) studies keep showing how appallingly ignorant Americans are of geography; and (2) with spelling, you always have a fighting chance of guessing right.

I saw a picture of the final ten contestants, complete with name plaques. Now, when you think of Asian-American overachievers, what part of Asia comes to mind first? For me, it's the East and near Southeast: China, Japan, the Koreas, Vietnam.... But among these ten contestants, six, including the winner, had names and appearances reflecting a heritage in India or a nearby country. The other four appeared to be purely Caucasian.

Do I suck for caring?

Comments

[eaglesf.livejournal.com]

I was actually reading that earlier.

Wish they would have had this when I was a kid. My parents drilled geography and world history into us every day.

Thankfully I purge those horrible things from mind mind to make room for circle-strafing strategies and Rubik's Cube solutions.

[deckardcanine.livejournal.com]

As I recall, you're the same LJer who posted a find-the-state quiz after I cited a study with abysmal results.

[eaglesf.livejournal.com]

Guilty as charged.

I couldn't purge all of it...it would be un-American to not at least have a good idea which states are where.

[-fairest.livejournal.com]

"Suck for caring?"....You're joking.

Yep, I'm a Mom who drills geography and history and such into her kids...since I speak to them like normal, civilized humans, my 4 yr old DD can tell you the basic meaning of canine and feline. My nearly 7 DS was pretending to be Godzilla, for whom one step takes him from Florida to England.

"Across which ocean?" I asked.

"Atlantic," he shrugged as if he thought I should know this already.

On my job, I get to speak with people from all over the world (as long as they can speak English.) Fun for me is to listen to multi-layered accents. My favorites so far have been a Mexican-Canadian,an Indian-Texan and a British-Aussie. The latter was best. I asked him to come to Los Angeles just to read books to my family! Whee!

[deckardcanine.livejournal.com]

I meant caring about the nationalities of the contestants. I feel like I'm setting up a new stereotype, which is probably a bad thing.