RE: “Our son was talking with four girls, all of them smart, from good homes and attending well-respected colleges....”
Totally wonderful addition. I laughed so hard I almost forgot how sad all this is...
Your story reminds me of a generalization I think about a lot: if somebody doesn’t teach you, you don’t know. QED: schools have to teach and teach again. It’s clear in this case that these girls never saw a wall map of the world. Nobody ever pointed to this map, and said, “Note that Alaska is way up here....They call us the Lower 48...”
These girls, and all of the "college" students like them, have way, way more problems than lack of a wall map. They are displaying a shocking level of rank stupidity. And their laughter in the face of the truth is even more disturbing.
We're looking at a lost generation. Not because of lack of facts, or even knowledge, but the destruction of the ability to think at all.
I'm glad you got a laugh at that story. Our family has regular fits every time it's brought up again. It was even funnier than I told it. My son was with his three friends and two of those friends were dating two of the four girls. All four girls were sooo adamant about Alaska's position that for just a second the four boys wondered if they were wrong. Thankfully, they concluded they were right and the girls were wrong.
And STILL the girls didn't back down. They were positive. Alaska is an island off the coast of southern California.
Our son tutored high school students. He has hundreds of these stories. One very rich young man in high school was being tutored in history and when asked who was the first president of the United States, he thought a moment and then answered "Lincoln."
Our patient, despairing son gave him the correct answer and then asked what war Washington fight in?
"The Civil War?" the student responded. Seriously.
What the heck are these schools doing with the billions funneled to "education???"