Interest in Topic and Importance to Education
In 2002, a Roper Survey for National Geographic Education Foundation conducted interviews in the United States, Canada, Mexico, France, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Great Britain, and Japan on almost 3,000 adults between eighteen and twenty-four years old. The interviews tested the participants’ knowledge of global geography, including location of countries, location of states, and population estimates. Sweden, Germany, and Italy ranked highest of the countries surveyed, with participants in the United States, Canada, and Mexico ranking lowest and answering fewer than half the questions correctly. One response in the survey was about the United States’ population in which almost one-third of Americans surveyed believed that the United States had one to two billion people. Only one-fourth of Americans correctly estimated the population. Participants in other countries were able to better estimate the United States’ population than Americans were. This study pointed out the dire need for greater geography education in United States secondary schools and in its higher education. Students in the United States seem behind students in other countries in the world when it comes to knowing about foreign places and people of other cultures (National Geographic Education Foundation, 2002).
Teaching students how to be citizens of the world, along with how to be citizens of their country is important because technology has made countries far away very accessible through the Internet and media. Students have more interaction with other cultures than ever before because of social media websites like Twitter and Facebook. Students today need to be equipped for this interaction with people from other places.
In my own high school, I did not learn how to counter this ethnocentrism. When I did learn about other cultures, I still saw the people as different from me. I used the United States as my base for analyzing and experiencing new cultures and nations. I was taught to view world events based on how the United States experienced them. No one told me to think about it from the other perspective. This skill is beneficial in teaching students empathy and eliminating prejudices. Students should learn how to see the world through others’ perspectives in order to better eliminate ethnocentrism.
Teaching students how to be citizens of the world, along with how to be citizens of their country is important because technology has made countries far away very accessible through the Internet and media. Students have more interaction with other cultures than ever before because of social media websites like Twitter and Facebook. Students today need to be equipped for this interaction with people from other places.
In my own high school, I did not learn how to counter this ethnocentrism. When I did learn about other cultures, I still saw the people as different from me. I used the United States as my base for analyzing and experiencing new cultures and nations. I was taught to view world events based on how the United States experienced them. No one told me to think about it from the other perspective. This skill is beneficial in teaching students empathy and eliminating prejudices. Students should learn how to see the world through others’ perspectives in order to better eliminate ethnocentrism.
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