Americans left behind in globalized world

There are 4,000 reasons Americans should know about the world pointing at us.

Missiles, that is.

It would take only 20 minutes for a missile to reach the United States from Russia, Christopher Van Aller, a political science professor at Winthrop, told his American Foreign Policy class.

The students in his 500-level political science class, however, are among the few Americans who know a significant amount about the geography, history and politics of the world.

A shocking 20 percent of 18- to 24-year-old Americans think Sudan is in Asia, according to the 2006 National Geographic-Roper Survey of Geographic Literacy. An even higher 48 percent of young adults surveyed thought the majority of the population in India is Muslim. (Take the quiz yourself.)

Americans have a mind-set that Stephen Brooks, author of “As Others See Us,” calls one of isolationism. That isolationism is composed of ignorance, insularity and indifference, he says.
Some international students at Winthrop University apparently have this same view of Americans.

Brandi Baker, a junior elementary education major, works as a peer mentor. One of her students from Canada told her many Canadians think Americans “live in a dome.”

A large reason for the mind-set of isolationism stems from the lack of global learning in schools. That’s why organizations like National Geographic and the National Council for Geographic Education have started campaigns to support the teaching of geography to students of all ages.

The view Americans have of the United States as the example for all other countries in the world to follow simply can’t continue to exist in a world in which globalization is increasingly important.

The curriculum for American schools needs to include lessons on the world, starting with geography at a very young age. Knowing where countries are located is the base to understanding more about them and the connections between them all.

Americans rely mostly on television as their source for national and international information about current events, according to the book “As Others See Us.”

This can be dangerous because the coverage of international events on American television networks isn’t necessarily proportional to the importance of events and issues across the world.

For example, the death of Anna Nicole Smith received more coverage than all other countries except Iraq, according to a presentation by Alisa Miller, the CEO of Public Radio International. (See video above.)

The economy has affected the number of foreign bureaus news networks can afford, Brooks said in his book. But television networks are covering these pop culture topics rather than international news because that’s what American viewers are interested in.

An increase of global learning in American schools would spark students’ interest in world issues. Young adults today have seen the effects of not knowing about the world. That's why we need to support global education so that younger generations aren’t left behind in a world consumed by globalization.