RUSH: I want to comment further here on the Miss Teen South Carolina answer. She was asked a question in a pageant: ‘Recent polls have shown a fifth of Americans can’t locate the United States on a world map. Why do you think this is? ‘ Here was her answer: ‘I personally believe the US Americans are unable to do so because some people out there in our nation don’t have maps, and, uh, I believe that our education, like such as South Africa and, uh, the Iraq, everywhere like, such as — and I believe that they should. Our education over here in the US should help the US — should help South Africa and should help the Iraq, and the Asian countries, so we will be able to build up our future for our children.’ Now, this is sad. This is sad, and people played this audio all over. It’s over ten million hits on YouTube, Mr. Snerdley. You’ve got the audio? (sigh) Okay, I’ll play it, but I’m not doing this to make fun of her. A lot of people did this. I’m not trying to make fun of her. There’s a reason for this. There is an explanation for this answer. Here, this is 18-year-old, Miss Teen South Carolina. Here’s the question: ‘Recent polls have shown a fifth of Americans can’t locate the United States on a world map. Why do you think that is?’
AIMEE TEEGARDEN: Recent polls show a fifth of Americans can’t locate the US on a world map. Why do you think this is?
MISS TEEN SC: I personally believe that US Americans are unable to do so because, uh, some people out there in our nation don’t have maps, and I believe that our education, like such as South Africa and the Iraq, everywhere like such as, and I believe that they should — our education over here in the US should help the US — or should help South Africa and should help the Iraq and the Asian countries, so we will be able to build up our future for our children.
RUSH: Now, the next day she went on the Today show to try to explain this, and I think made it even worse. Now, here’s the thing you wonder. She’s 18 years old. How do you get this kind of an answer? Now, folks, I didn’t do this to laugh at this girl, make fun of her. That’s been done last week while I was gone. I think that this is a perfect answer for a kid totally educated in government-run schools run by a bunch of liberals. This is the stuff that’s been taught to her. When talking about a question about maps, why does she come up with South Africa? Why does she come up with ‘the Iraq’? I guarantee you that those things came to her mind because something’s being taught to her about those countries, and so what happens when she hears the question involving the word ‘map’? Forget ‘the United States.’ The question is: ‘How come only a fifth of Americans can recognize their own country on a map?’ She hears the word ‘map,’ and she launches in and makes associations with what she’s been taught in geography with maps, and that’s Iraq and South Africa — and look at her answer. ‘Well, I think we need to increase our education in places like South Africa and the Iraq, our education over here, to help the Iraq and the Asian countries…’ Obviously this woman’s being taught that we’re being mean to the Iraqis and to South Africans.
That’s the connection that she has made. This is a perfect answer for what she has been taught. To blame her for this and to start laughing at her, I think, misses the point. This answer is the product of what she’s been taught. Plus, it’s a quintessential beauty pageant answer. You can say this is funny, but it’s not. It’s sad. This answer is a direct result of the public education system in this country. (interruption) Oh, right. Yeah, that’s right. We had a call once. They’re teaching a course called geography but it doesn’t teach geography. It’s how you feel about various places in the world. Koko, do an archive search. I’m certain this came up after the website started. It’s been in the last two or three years, this newfangled geography course that was being taught. A kid called and told us about it. You were to tell the teacher, in other words, how you felt when they showed you a certain spot on the map, and it was supposed to get you talking. I’m telling you, this girl is a product of the touchy-feely education that goes on in public schools today. It’s a sad thing. To sit there and laugh at her is not the point. She went on the Today show the next day and the same kind of gibberish came out, and Matt Lauer and Ann Curry I think it was, were giving her high fives for at least standing up for what she believed. They were encouraging her. They didn’t have the guts to sit there and say, ‘What did you just say?’ The question was, ‘A fifth of Americans can’t recognize their own country on a map…’ That’s striking enough on its own. ‘Recent polls have shown a fifth of Americans can’t locate the US on a world map. That question’s just as bad as the answer. The content of the question is a great question to ask. What would you think the answer to the question is? How come a fifth of Americans can’t spot their own country on a map? What do you think that is? They’ve never been taught where it is, exactly. The only thing they see is the map on the weather page on TV. You would think that having grown up seeing the map of the US on a weather page, that when they put it on a map of the world, they’d be able to spot the shape, anyway, and say, ‘Oh, I’ve seen that on TV. That must be America.’ (sigh) It’s scary stuff out there, folks.
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RUSH: All right. On March 7th of 2006 on this very program: ‘Human Geography and Mental Mapping.’ Remember that? Human Geography and Mental Mapping. We found this because somebody called and talked to us about this. We’d never heard of this, and we went to the NationalGeographic.com website where the course and the lesson plan are spelled out. We’re talking here about this because of the answer Miss Teen South Carolina gave to the question: Only a fifth of Americans can spot their own country on a map; why do you think that is? Here’s the preview of main ideas of Human Geography and Mental Mapping: ‘ We all form impressions and images of our physical surroundings—even of places we’ve never been. These impressions are what geographers call our mental maps. Geographers are interested in the concept of mental maps and how they are developed. Understanding the way people view different regions can help experts understand and predict how the land may be used and, among other uses, what patterns of migration may be expected. This lesson uses mental maps to explore student perceptions of different regions of the United States. United States and world history are filled with examples of regional suspicions, misconceptions, and antagonisms. World conflict and cooperation, topics commonly studied in world geography, are influenced by the perceptions that people of different nations have of each other.’ I remember this now. What happened was the people would go into this course and they’d be told to point at a spot on a map and explain how they felt about it, and this was used to determine who was racist and sexist and bigoted and homophobic and all these things. There was no teaching here at all. It was the exact opposite. It was just: ‘Here’s how we get in touch with our feelings. We the teachers, we want to know how you feel when we point to Mississippi, and when we point to Missouri, how do you feel?’ I don’t know if this Miss Teen South Carolina took this course, but I guarantee you, whatever she learned in there about geography and maps and so forth triggered thoughts in her poor little mind of South Africa and ‘the Iraq,’ and you can imagine what they are teaching her about South Africa and ‘the Iraq.’ That’s what she called it! She called it ‘the Iraq.’
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RUSH: By the way, Miss Teen South Carolina also called us ‘US-Americans.’ US-Americans? What has she been taught, the PC African-Americans and Hispanic-Americans, and then there are US-Americans? You gotta ask: What was she being taught?