Where in the World is…?

If “Carmen Sandiego” wasn’t your immediate response to this blog post title, then you were not alive in the 90’s…or at the very least, you lived under a rock in the 90’s.

Today, I will be sharing with you the woes of teaching kids who have no clue where anything is on a map, including themselves.

Every morning, I have a “morning message” that I write for my wee ones. It always starts with “Good morning!” and an over-sized, big ass smiley face. I then go on to ask a question that they have to respond to before we have our Morning Meeting. Some of my personal favorite morning messages include:

• If someone from Canada brought you a pet moose, what would you name it?
• If you had a pet parrot and could teach it a 3-word sentence, what would you teach it to say?
• What is one thing adults do that seems kind of silly to you?
• What do you think adults miss most about being a kid?

Sometimes my morning messages revolve around geography (i.e. “what state has the coolest-looking shape?” “what continent would you like to visit the most?” “if you had to move to another state, which state would you want it to be?” “if you had to live in a different country for a month, which country would you choose?”, etc., etc.)

Every time the morning message involves geography, I realize that I have done a piss poor job of explaining cities vs. states vs. countries vs. continents. Here are some of their answers…you tell me if I’m an effective geography teacher or not: (*spoiler alert: I am not.)

Literally not a single one of those is a continent…
Ohio is a state…not even a country
Also, is that the word “asshole” written in green in the top left corner? I don’t even know anymore…
In conclusion, Japan should be spelled “Jupan.”

Honestly, they did a great job of listing actual, real countries here (which I appreciate). I’m just genuinely interested in how many of you would be able to read what my students are trying to write on a daily basis.

I’d like you to now scroll back up to the photo and see if you can guess all 8 countries. (Some are continents…)

Here are your answers (from left to right):
Mexico, Iceland, Africa, Australia, England, Antarctica, Italy, and England

tbh, I think we can all agree that “Itlee” is a better spelling than “Italy.”

From left to right (starting with the top red answer): Ireland (that’s a country), Australia (both a continent and a country, but not a state), Alaska (that’s 1), Italy (you guessed it, not a state),  2 votes for New Mexico (like, why though?), Texas, Kansas City (this is a city…it says it right there in the name), or Hawaii. #facepalm

Bermuda……………..is a country, folks. Also it doesn’t really have a cool shape…it’s pretty standard looking.

Now, while having them misunderstand geography is kind of a bummer, in the grand scheme of things, it could be worse. Like I could have the word “cock” written on my board on a bi-weekly basis.

Oh, wait…what’s that you say?

That’s right. I already do have the word “cock” written on my board on a regular basis:

I don’t know what a “boycock” is, but I doubt Rosa Parks started it.

…lol jk, guys. He was trying to write “boycott”…of course, duh.

Cock gummies, mmmm. Delicious and nutritious. Either this kid’s been to one too many bachelorette parties orrrr he meant to write “coke gummies”

That’s it for today. Catch ya on the flip side, guys and gals.