“You want to Know Where Baloo is? He is in New Hamsterdam”

With the abundance of technology available to kids with the internet and television, it’s amazing that so many students still have no grasp of geography. I must admit it’s not my best subject, but it amazes me when a child in upper elementary school doesn't know that Kentucky is a state or Australia is a country. Recently, I had a sixth grader answer on a test that England was in West America!

As a teacher I wonder how to get this knowledge to them so they can see the big picture. I think they need to know where in the world they are to help them decide later on where they want to go and what they want to do. When I was growing up I never thought much about countries, except for the fact they were “foreign” and, I supposed, all backwards compared to the United States. I assumed most countries, except perhaps England, were still fairly primitive. I never knew about the big world out there. Now that I do, I want to see more of it. I want to visit the places I read about in history books. I want to see the wonders God created. I want to see Holland; not Amsterdam, or “New Hamsterdam”, but Delft.