You Mean There Is A Country Named Georgia?

This week I substituted one morning for a teacher that has one class of "yearbook"-you know, the ones that are supposed to go and take the pictures and put together the yearbook. When I was in middle school we didn't have a yearbook. Now every elementary and middle school has a yearbook.

Anyway, this class is made up of good students, although they are chatterboxes. One of the girls came into the class and asked me if I knew there was a Georgia close to Russia. I let her know that I was aware of this because it had been in the news just a few weeks ago. It seems that in their U.S. History class they were talking about Russia invading Georgia and this girl was confused. She asked the teacher why Russia would be invading the state of Georgia. That is when she was told that there was also a country named Georgia. Boy was she surprised!

The next day I was in a different classroom and this same girl walked by and told me she had just found out that Alaska was next to Canada. I also enlightened her to the fact that Russia can been seen from Alaska. I knew that if she hadn't heard about Russia invading Georgia that she she had never heard Sarah Palin talking Russia. In fact I am not sure that should would know who Sarah Palin is.

She had always thought that Alaska was next to Hawaii. Obviously she wasn't paying attention in elementary school when they were teaching the state locations. In most maps of the U.S. Alaska is shown floating around in the ocean next to Hawaii. I don't know if that excuses her from making that mistake but it does make me wonder how many other students think that Alaska is next to Hawaii.

Liz