Accented English

[pengolodh_sc]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter, Kristin wrote, on the subject of New Mexico 
and general ignorance:

[snip]

> I'd like to know what they teach these people in school.
> Granted New Mexico doesn't have the best educational system
> in the country but we at least know all the states.
[snip]
> Cheers,
> Kristin

They teach them all they should know, or at least they try to, but if 
the students consider try outs for base-, foot-, basket-, 
softballteams or cheerleader-troops, or results of ballgames, or 
what's happening at the next Ricki Lake or Jerry Springer-show more 
important than the 47th state to join the union, the teachers' 
options get a bit limited.  Geography and history are also two 
subjects that are at high risk of falling into the "why do we have to 
do this stuff, anyway - we don't need it?"-category with many 
students.  I spent 10 months and nine days as an exchangestudent at a 
highschool in East-Central Kentucky in 1993-94 (doing junior-year), 
and one of the subjects compulsory for exchangestudents with the 
exchange-agency I was using, was US History, also compulsory for all 
local students.  My US History class had ca. 25 students, including 
me and a Japanese exchangestudent.  You can guess which two students 
came out on top of that class, a league or two ahead of most of the 
others, can't you?  The reason was not, IMHO, that the other students 
were less intelligent than normal - they just didn't really see the 
point in learning about it.  I had the same type of classmates back 
in Norway too.

Best regards
Christian Stubø