Comments on: MiSAY

By: Shantel

Shantel — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 04:26:00 +0000

It is interesting to see another ‘thirty something’, who shows as having some intelligence, with the same lack of knowledge or interest in geography. I agree with Nicole’s point about the ‘fifty somethings’ (or baby boomers) perhaps also not having the knowledge to which you referred. It is my understanding that in the 50′s & 60′s when the baby boomers would have been at school, the curriculum (at least for females) didn’t include subjects such as geography. More domestic related subjects like home science and textiles would have been preferential. So unless the female student had the affluence to go to university to study further or the luxury of being able to travel (rather than choosing to raise children), I suspect their knowledge of all things ‘worldly’ has come from living life and now through access to the internet.
I think it is also important to remember that everybody thinks and processes information differently – what one person can comprehend may seem very alien to another. Very few people, if any, have a comprehensive knowledge of everything – though some may think they do!
I would be interested in seeing any statistics across the board of Baby Boomers, Generation X and Generation Y on the subject.

By: MiSociety

MiSociety — Wed, 14 May 2008 01:00:43 +0000

I am also ‘thirty something’ and, like Shantel above, I dropped Geography as soon as I could – opting for History instead. I knew nothing of Botswana until I stumbled across “The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency” by Alexander McCall Smith. Funnily enough the fictitious ‘fifty something’ characters in this series are grappling with the same issues of the Botswanan youth lacking knowledge and understanding of their traditional culture. Maybe, what is happening here is just an intergenerational lack of understanding?

Unfortunately, I think you have missed a rather salient point in your conversation with your ‘thirty something’ friend. Firstly, your friend chose to watch the show on Botswana rather than something inane like ACA or 60 Minutes. Secondly, upon watching that show he or she showed initiative to question his or her lack of knowledge – to me this is vastly more important than having the knowledge itself. I hope your friend was not ridiculed for such questioning, as I feel this would only serve to dampen his or her inquisitive nature. It is impossible to cram all knowledge into the schooling years and therefore through living life one fills in the gaps in ones knowledge. I also wonder if all ‘fifty something’ people have the knowledge to which you are referring or you just happen to come from a privileged position in society to which our schooling system gives advantage?

I do not wish to cause offence only to open up discussion with some different ideas on this matter…

Nicole

MiSociety…Thanks Nicole, your ‘salient’ point is insightful and justified and we look forward to hearing from you and our other ‘thirty something’ further as the point of ‘MiSay’ is to generate discussion on the topics raised. We are also very willing to publish articles (with credits) in MiSay that may be submitted by our readers.

By: Shantel

Shantel — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 05:26:59 +0000

I found your article on ‘Dotswana’ very interesting as I am also ‘thirty something’ and not particularly good with geography. I must confess that I found geography at school very boring (not sure whether the blame lies with the curriculum, the teacher or just my lack of interest) and as soon as I had the opportunity to drop it as a subject I did. From what I remember, we were learning more about geographical climates like rainforests etc rather than where countries are located in the world.
Here’s a question for you – how many people in first world countries still don’t know the difference between Australia and Austria?

MiSociety…. Even the most boring subjects can be interesting if the perveyor of the message has the ability to make it so, and that responsibility lies with our teachers and hmmm tha’ts a curly one on Oz and Austria Chantel – considering so many populations around the world still don’t even have access to clean drinking water let alone a world map!