Statistics and rankings can back up a lot of things about America. 

But judging a group of 300 million people off of a few TikTok interviews is not cool. At all. 

Europeans joke on social media about America’s high obesity rates, plastic use, and terrible knowledge of geography. While the other two are factual, maybe we are bad at geography.

I guess I shouldn’t generalize all Europeans into one group. The recent social media claims that Americans struggle with geography generally come from England and France, while the hate of American tourists comes from Spain, specifically the city of Barcelona. 

A part of understanding geography is traveling around the world and seeing different parts of the world. 

“It’s easier to travel as a European because a lot of the countries are within a day’s travel,” senior Hannah Loyd said. “America’s a lot bigger, so it takes longer. But, the U.S. school system doesn’t really focus on geography.”

Loyd has traveled inside and outside the U.S. and goes to school in the U.S. She makes the point that U.S. schools do not prioritize teaching geography. We are certainly knowledgeable about what has happened or is happening worldwide, but placing countries on a map is a second thought. 

“They tried to teach it in history classes, but everything I learned about geography I took time [to do] outside of class,” senior Sydney Williams said. “My parents teach history and thought it was important, but I also like to play geography games on Sporcle.”

Williams can name every country in the world (197) in under seven minutes. So it’s clear there’s a large range of knowledge. But, at the end of the day, it’s more important to know what’s going on in the world currently and historically, than placing Sarushima on a map. 

Also worth considering: Maybe we should all be nice to each other. European countries don’t judge us, we don’t judge them. We can all choose to be best friends and live happily ever after. 

“I think it’s rich for them to judge us,” Williams said. “But hey, at least we have functioning air conditioning and great burgers.”