Why are British people so crap at geography?

Question

Do they stay away from school on those days?

OK - most are. Just watch 'millionaire' - most don't know much geography at all. For the guy who asked - where exactly is Grong Grong?

By the way - I am British my self but born in Australia.

Answer 1

This is an easy one. It's because many geography teachers in British schools are/were primarily P.E.teachers or coaches and they had to be able to teach another subject, they tended to choose geography as it was considered to be the 'easiest' or least academic subject to teach. So you end up with people teaching geography who would rather be
sending the poor kids out on cross-country runs or making 'kick- ***' speeches to the sports teams. Or possibly P.E. teachers are a tiny bit thick.

(apologies to P.E./geography teachers everywhere, this is based on my own schooldays, I like geography really)

Answer 2

As someone has already pointed out: not knowing map locations of various places is completely removed from not paying attention in geography lessons. No-one has learnt where every country is on the globe at school in years. Just like no-one gets taught to remember by rote the succession of the British throne.

Knowledge of locations is something you pick up on your own time. I don't know the locations of many English counties. Those I do are merely because I have relatives living there. I don't see the point in sitting down and studying a county map of the UK just to learn the rest either.

Answer 3

I agree that British people are crap, i too am a little lacking in the geographic knowledge pool, however, its not just British people that are crap its american people, canadian people etc etc, your question is a slight generalisation but it can be said about pretty much any culture or race / nationality. possibly because its not all that interesting a subject, especially compared with subjects that rule today for example, it, media or film. most people (mainly children or kids) would prefer to mess about on a computer making some kind of website or watching menthos and diet coke "expreiments" than read a map or learn about rock cycles, hope that helps!!!

Answer 4

I think the question should replace British people with Americans. Most Americans don't know much about geography. I know Africans who know more about the locations of American cities (for example) than do Americans.

Answer 5

I believe your question to be a little subjective (or biaised)!
Having travelled the World in all directions, I can tell you that not only the Britons, but the vast majority of ALL people have an extremely limited knowledge of geography (Bush, for example, does not know where Iraq is...).
Why? Because Geo is never very well taught in classes, because people are not interested in remote places (they know only the places where they have been), because they have GPS and maps (again for what they NEED).
In general, because they don't NEED Geo's knowledge in their day-to-day lives.
Very poor reasons.
Now, as a personnal experience, I believe Americans (not Brits) are the poorests at Geo... (An American in a Hotel in Brussels, calling his boss in US: "Took the wrong plane. I am in a small town called Belgium...", another in Portugal: "Where can I catch the ferry for Portugal?" etc...)
But, again, if you are not american, do you know the names and location of all US states? Can you name, in order, all the countries of the eastern coast of Africa?
Even if you do, how does that help you in your daily life?

Answer 6

I'd say British people are most knowledgable when it comes to Geography than any other country in the world.

Answer 7

I'm not sure they are compared to the rest of the world. If you think about it, probably more people leave Britain to go on holidays abroad than most other countries. If you look at America, for example, you'd find that a large percentage of the population don't even have passports. Their country is so big and so varied, that they don't need to go anywhere else in the world!

Answer 8

You can not judge a whole nation's ability in a single subject (such as geography) by the standard of people that get picked to appear on television game shows. It would be like judging the whole of the USA on one answer given by a contestant on Jeopardy.

Answer 9

I didnt know they were but maybe coz they occupied so much of the world last century that now they dont know whats a part of thier kingdom and whats another country, it sounds funny but people take all sorts of things for granted, maybe the British take world geography for granted, they have changed the map of the world enought times. they are the reason kuwait isnt a part of iraq, and that mad bastard saddam is still dreaming of taking it back.

Answer 10

Because todays kids get an option in school which subjects they want to study, and unless they pick geography they will stay uneducated in this area. History is another subject kids are unfamiliar with. Things really need to change.