Things you're shocked people don't know

[Jetfire]

^
I had this romantic notion in middle school that I was going to learn Spanish and go to Spain as an exchange student and it was going to be magical... Boy that didn't work out...I took 5 years of Spanish and can't speak it, never got to got to Spain or Chile which I really wanted to do...my life is just sad.

lol you never got pass Hola, como esta?

Ok, I can speak it a little, can understand far less.

I can start a converstion with someone in Spanish...but to covey my thoughts and feelings in Spanish is not possible.

 

[RoJoHen]

Yeah, that's pretty bad, but it's hardly "not being able to find their own country."

 

[Amaris]

When I worked for a very large department store, I was put in charge of the Christmas department, and I had to demo the new toys and decor we had for the other managers. One of the gifts we were pushing that year was the GeoSafari globe. It would talk to you and give you a little geography lesson, and then quiz you on certain areas. You just had to press the country on the globe surface. Out of about 7 or 8 adults (Texans, of course), I was the only one who could find Ireland on the globe. I was also the only one who not only knew where Sri Lanka was, but I was also the only one who had even HEARD of if. There was one woman who couldn't find FLORIDA. I mean---JESUS. I was horrified.

Yep. I speak from familial experience. Most members of my family couldn't find Ohio on the map. That's not an insult, that's a demonstrated fact.

 

[auntiehill]

Believe me---more than a few customers could NOT find the USA on the globe. I had to help them, to show them how the toy worked. I kind of enjoyed making the parents look like total dumbasses in front of their kids.

 

[Finn]

I'm surprise that the majority of the class didn't know the basic history of World War II in my History class.

This wouldn't surprise me. I "studied" WWII several times throughout school, but the only thing we ever learned about were concentration camps and Pearl Harbor.

This...and my history classes always barely made it to the great depression when the end of the term was close.

 

[Starbreaker]

Believe me---more than a few customers could NOT find the USA on the globe. I had to help them, to show them how the toy worked. I kind of enjoyed making the parents look like total dumbasses in front of their kids.

Their kids will turn out to be just like them too, sadly.

 

[Deranged Nasat]

Things I'm shocked people don't know?

A lot of things to do with issues of gender, to be honest. I'm always amazed that when it's pointed out that there are more young women than young men in university in many if not most Islamic states- in some Middle Eastern countries three times as many girls than boys- people a) didn't know, b) are somehow surprised and c) don't grasp why this would obviously be the case given these nation's cultures.

 

[RoJoHen]

I'm surprise that the majority of the class didn't know the basic history of World War II in my History class.

This wouldn't surprise me. I "studied" WWII several times throughout school, but the only thing we ever learned about were concentration camps and Pearl Harbor.

This...and my history classes always barely made it to the great depression when the end of the term was close.

Ah, see, we skipped around a lot, and we always made time to learn about those concentration camps.

If I were to go by what I learned in school, The History of the World would go something like this:

Mesopotamia/The Fertile Crescent
Ancient Egypt
The American Revolution
Slavery
The Civil War
World War II

Nothing in between. Now, call me crazy, but I have a feeling a lot of stuff happened in between Ancient Egypt and the American Revolution. And for all I know, Europe didn't even exist until the 1700s.

 

[Nerys Ghemor]

Can anyone speak more then two languages? I know the Dutch can speak like four which is German, English, French and of course their own.

I read and understand Spanish very well. I used to speak it reasonably, but I have a horrible, HORRIBLE fear of speaking in a foreign language and never fully got comfortable. Sometime when my work schedule gets more stable, I need to sign up for a night course or something so I can try to work on my fear.

(It's so odd, BTW...I have given speeches in front of very large groups, but there are only two types that scare me: foreign language speeches, and praying aloud. Both of those are fears I want to learn how to overcome. Does anybody have any suggestions?)

You know, people say stuff like this, but I really don't believe it. Have you actually come into contact with real people who haven't been able to do this?

I have.

When I worked for a very large department store, I was put in charge of the Christmas department, and I had to demo the new toys and decor we had for the other managers. One of the gifts we were pushing that year was the GeoSafari globe. It would talk to you and give you a little geography lesson, and then quiz you on certain areas. You just had to press the country on the globe surface. Out of about 7 or 8 adults (Texans, of course), I was the only one who could find Ireland on the globe. I was also the only one who not only knew where Sri Lanka was, but I was also the only one who had even HEARD of if. There was one woman who couldn't find FLORIDA. I mean---JESUS. I was horrified.

Oh, man, I wanted that toy so bad when I was little!!!

I think I was lucky in the way I was brought up, though. I still remember my map puzzles--probably still have them back at my parents' house. I had one for the US, and another one for the world, and I really loved them. Part of the reason my parents got them was because my dad traveled a LOT then, in the Air Force, and they thought (rightly) that it would help me to have the maps to understand where exactly my dad was on any given trip.

I have to say, I am so grateful to them for that!

 

[Nick086]

^
I had this romantic notion in middle school that I was going to learn Spanish and go to Spain as an exchange student and it was going to be magical... Boy that didn't work out...I took 5 years of Spanish and can't speak it, never got to got to Spain or Chile which I really wanted to do...my life is just sad.

lol you never got pass Hola, como esta?

Ok, I can speak it a little, can understand far less.

I can start a converstion with someone in Spanish...but to covey my thoughts and feelings in Spanish is not possible.

I know some Latinos mosty Puetro Ricans that don't speak Spanish, but they were born here and so were their parents and maybe their Grandparents.

 

[Miss Chicken]

I loved map puzzles as well.

When I was at high school we had to be able to draw a freehand map of the world, as well as a map of Australia and a map of Tasmania.

We also had to know all the Commonwealth countries and be able to point to them on the map - not very hard as Commonwealth countries were coloured pink on the map.

 

[Arrqh]

I was sort of surprised to see football mentioned here; ultimately it's purely entertainment and some people just aren't interested. I don't know the rules beyond the extreme basics that apply to any sport with a ball and simply don't care. Why should I?

 

[RoJoHen]

I was sort of surprised to see football mentioned here; ultimately it's purely entertainment and some people just aren't interested. I don't know the rules beyond the extreme basics that apply to any sport with a ball and simply don't care. Why should I?

I guess I just figured people learned these things. I was tested on the rules of all major sports during PE class in Junior High.

 

[Arrqh]

Really? I was never tested on anything in PE/gym, that just seems like a complete waste of time to me. Lucky for me; I probably would have done poorly

 

[Spaceman Spiff]

A few years back, I would carpool with one of my colleagues. One time during the drive, she said she didn't know the difference between a liberal and a conservative. That surprised me, since she was almost forty, but I gave her general descriptions of each, at least as far as the U.S. is concerned.

To illustrate it, I picked the issue of abortion, and described the basic liberal and conservative viewpoints. Then, weirdly, she spent the rest of the ride telling me every detail of her views on the issue of abortion, which wasn't really the point. (And honestly, I wasn't sure how much I was interested in the political opinions of someone who'd only known the difference between liberals and conservatives for about five minutes.)

We pulled up to work as she finished telling me when abortion is and is not okay, and I said, "Right. Well ... that's somewhere in the middle."

 

[Ashu]

Really? I was never tested on anything in PE/gym, that just seems like a complete waste of time to me. Lucky for me; I probably would have done poorly

I wasn't tested on any of it either. I mean, yeah we were taught enough of the rules to be able to play the sports in class properly but we were tested more on the skills than the actual rules.

 

[RoJoHen]

Really? I was never tested on anything in PE/gym, that just seems like a complete waste of time to me. Lucky for me; I probably would have done poorly

Well, the tests were really basic (maybe 10-20 questions), but we'd always be tested on the rules of the sports we had been playing for that particular unit.

 

[Kelso]

I once posted this in another thread, but it's pretty applicable here...

A year or so ago, I caught my mother-in-law telling my then 2 year old daughter that the sun turns into the moon at night. I laughed and said that, even though she is young, we should we should try to teach her things that are accurate- then I explained to my daughter that "the Earth goes around the sun and the moon goes around the Earth."

My mother-in-law gave me a dirty look and said, "How do you know?"

I was a bit speechless.

 

[RoJoHen]

^That's kind of awesome.

 

[Spot's Meow]

Really? I was never tested on anything in PE/gym, that just seems like a complete waste of time to me. Lucky for me; I probably would have done poorly

Well, the tests were really basic (maybe 10-20 questions), but we'd always be tested on the rules of the sports we had been playing for that particular unit.

You must have had some intense PE teachers. I don't believe we had any test of any kind, we were just handed some soccer or basketballs and told to go play.



I'm always shocked that some people don't realize that America isn't necessarily the bestest country ever. A lot of people just seem to assume that we are automatically the most awesome and deserve better than any other country just because...well I'm not sure why. I'm shocked when they don't seem to acknowledge that citizens of other countries are just as human as we are.