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Megan Sheils is
a federal reference librarian. She received her Masters Degree
in Library Science from the University of Maryland, College
Park, and was selected as an American Library Association Emerging
Leader for 2008. She lives in Washington, DC, where she is helping
to organize Girls Rock! DC, a rock and roll camp for girls.
www.girlsrockdc.org
 The
Tonight Show runs a segment called “Jaywalking,”
which features Jay Leno posing basic knowledge questions about
geography and current events to passersby. More often than
not, the answers are horribly wrong. One mother of five guesses
that Paris is in London; when asked who won the Civil War
one man replies, “We did.” Many seem unfazed that
they don’t know the answers, even finding it hilarious
that they are being asked “hard” questions like
where one finds Venetians (one answer: Venezuela).
On her reality show Newlyweds, singer Jessica Simpson
infamously wondered whether the “Chicken of the Sea”
that she was eating was actually fish or chicken. On the game
show Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? American Idol
star Kellie Pickler was asked, “Budapest is the capital
of what European country?” She furrowed her brow for
several painful seconds before replying with confusion, “I
thought Europe was a country.” And who could forget Miss
Teen South Carolina 2007, who fumbled through a question about
how to cope with this very problem—Americans’ lack
of geographical know-how—with hardly a sentence intact.
Television and the Internet are full of footage like this,
all collected for our entertainment.
A recent New
York Times article features a new book called The Age
of American Unreason by Susan Jacoby (Pantheon 2008),
which contends that not only are Americans ignorant about
basic scientific and cultural knowledge, but they also don’t
think it matters. Jacoby cites a 2006 National
Geographic poll, which found that more than three years
into the Iraq war, 63 percent of 18-24 year olds could not
locate Iraq on a map.
Perhaps the knowledge that Google and Wikipedia are just
a click away means information is being processed differently.
Why remember the capital of Italy, the name of the Secretary
of Defense, or the order of the planets if we know where to
find it—almost instantaneously?
Maybe the youth of today are intelligent—but
in a new and different way. They are culturally and technically
savvy. Of course they still have a lot to learn from more
analog generations. But those generations have a little to
learn from them.
The jury remains out on whether Americans are less intelligent
and more hostile to knowledge, and why. You can’t change the
attitudes of millions of Americans who may not value intellect,
but you can work to maintain intellect in yourself and foster
it in your family. Here are a few suggestions for staying
aware of the world around you:
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Post a map of the world in a
high-traffic area like the kitchen and mark where you
have been or want to go. |
| • |
Read-even if you only have time
for a few magazine or newspaper articles. You will learn
something new every time. |
| • |
Take advantage of iTunes’ free
National Public Radio or foreign-language lesson podcasts
to listen to on your commute. Check out free children’s
audio books from your public library for long car rides
with little ones. |
| • |
Keep an almanac or newspaper
in the bathroom. It’s suddenly not so boring when there
is nothing else to read! |
| • |
Take a Night Off—once a
week, plan a game night with friends or family, turn off
the tube and stimulate your mind with a creativity-based
game like Pictionary or Cranium. |
| • |
Talk to your kids. When you
explain the world around them, small children absorb every
word. |
| • |
Model behavior—if you value
intellect, your children will, too. |
| • |
Take field trips to historical
sites and museums. It shouldn’t be a forced march—wander,
enjoy, and pay attention to what you like. |
| • |
Try new restaurants of varying ethnicities. Dinner
out can be like a window on another world.
|
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Test your own know-how with this National Geographic
poll: nationalgeographic.com/roper2006/.
National Geographic has also started My Wonderful World,
a national campaign for geography education.
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