Geography Nuts

Since I am one of those wierdos that thinks maps and geograghy is a good topic, and in a public education that should be the best on the globe with private pushing the stratospheres of personal achievement, I think I can comment. I grew up on a private high school campus, my dad was head of the math department. It is a shame I can't list the school here for security reasons, but if you want information on one of the best college prep schools in the country, located in the southeast, email me.
Back to geography and the teaching of it, let's see, 10th grade, we had to be able to fill in a blank map of the world, every country, capital, major river, valley and mountain range and a similar breakdown of the US, Canada and Mexico. We had our political banter, Carter years, but always in the compare and contrast level of debate. I had a good professor, really good, he would be all over the middle eastern conflict, covering every nook and bloody cranny. He would have shown the cartoons and even the beheading flicks, he is a liberal. A typical essay question modernized; Compare and contrast the reaction to the Mohammed cartoons to the religio-politico forces and socio-economic situation in Palestine and the West. He tought me alot of history and how to break it down and its impact is now showing a quarter century later.
Today's kids wouldn't know Sudan from Siberia, many can't even get our coastlines correct, let alone point out the country their teacher is squawking about, this incident recently getting so much flap is the norm not the anomaly. I have to draw maps to show a college student where a particular state is, so sad. I wish our teachers were freed from the politically correct, revisionist crowd. I support vouchers and oppose teachers unions, I am worried about where the kids will be in thirty years, not where their teacher' s pension will have the teacher playing golf. You, know like reading, writing and arithmetic, how to debate and converse in public and not appear a fool? I can be good at that, at least I admit it.