52 States in the USA

I teach at an adult cram school where the majority of students are high schoolers and college students. In my class yesterday, I had a question “How many states are there in the USA?”. Pretty much EVERYONE said either 52 or 51. I was like wtf?! So I asked them where they learned that and they all said their high school teachers. I know the Taiwanese education is bad but is it really this bad?

Does anyone have similar experiences? Or explanations as to why high schools teach the wrong amount of states? I’m really curious.

What’s your answer? You don’t know and are trying to pull it out of our noses?

Is there any reason why a school in Taiwan needs to teach anything at all about the number of states in America? I certainly didn’t learn anything whatsoever about the make up of the US at any level of schooling in Australia, and don’t really see why anyone other than Americans should learn it in school.

Are we including the UK?

Parochialism at its absolute finest. Ironically, when an American doesn’t know the difference between Thailand or Taiwan, or can’t find Hungary or Paraguay on a map, he’s typically accused of being parochial. Perfectly okay if you’re non-American and parochial though. Why learn anything that doesn’t immediately have an impact on your life? Indeed, all you really need is reality TV for all your educational needs. Well done. :thumbsup:

I actually did learn about America (we studied American history in Year 10) in Australia. Then again, I didn’t go to a government school full of bogans.

Parochialism at its absolute finest. Ironically, when an American doesn’t know the difference between Thailand or Taiwan, or can’t find Hungary or Paraguay on a map, he’s typically accused of being parochial. Perfectly okay if you’re non-American and parochial though. Why learn anything that doesn’t immediately have an impact on your life? Indeed, all you really need is reality TV for all your educational needs. Well done. :thumbsup:

I actually did learn about America (we studied American history in Year 10) in Australia. Then again, I didn’t go to a government school full of bogans.[/quote]

Wow, way to jump to conclusions. Well done. :bravo:

Learn about your own country first (Australia) then learn about your region (Asia) and your country’s heritage (UK / Europe). Then worry about the rest of the world.

For someone in Taiwan, that would be learning about Taiwan firstly, then greater Asia (region) and more emphasis on China and Japan (heritage).

Guy, can you name every province in China? Did you learn that at school? If not, why not?

How many states and territories does Australia have?

How many counties in the UK? How many ceremonial counties?

The US has 56 states and territories … so, don’t blame the Taiwanese teachers …

cfimages: Why do they have to be mutually exclusive though? At the age of twelve, I could show you where pretty much every country on the planet was located, and also tell you its capital. Yet I couldn’t have shown you where Cairns was on a map. So what? I think it’s far more important to have a broad overview than microscopic knowledge of one place. I am constantly astounded that my students at junior high school can’t even name the continents (in Chinese). This kind of lack of knowledge about anything outside Taiwan is what makes this place so damned parochial and it’s why they regularly put their collective feet in their mouths with things like Darkie toothpaste or whatever it used to be called. It’s why people who are native English speakers, but not white, regularly come on here and complain (and rightly so) about how hard it is to find work here. Because, as everyone knows, black, brown and yellow people can’t be American, British or Australian because American, British or Australian people are white. Likewise, that Polish or Russian person must be a native English speaker because they are white, and all white people speak English. There’s your Taiwanese parochialism at its finest.

I can’t name every province in China, but again, so what? I don’t know every canton of Switzerland either. So what? Are you assuming that because Taiwanese don’t know much about the rest of the world that they actually know a lot about their own history or culture? Do you really think the average Taiwanese person can name every province in China either? I’ll go you one better though. I have a map of Taiwan in my classroom and when I ask random students to show me Zhanghua County or Taoyuan County, many (perhaps even most) can’t. Taiwanese are, in the main, not only ignorant of the rest of the world, but also grossly ignorant of their own country and culture.

We actually did study Chinese history (briefly) in year 8. Should we have focussed entirely on the history of Australia instead, or how about the history of Victoria, or Melbourne, or the little area of Melbourne we lived in? After all, that could have occupied years of study. No, people obviously study world history or world geography to get an overview of things and so they don’t end up completely parochial. I actually wish we’d had enough time in school to study all sorts of history and geography I never got to study, including all sorts of obscure parts of the world, which is why I’ve read (and am still reading) about it to this day.

I would also argue that your order (local, regional, heritage) is completely out of order. People should learn about their cultural background first in a very broad sense, as well as in comparison to other broad, international topics, and then they should get progressively more narrowly focussed from there. Also, it’s far more important for an Australian kid to learn about England (and Europe) than Asia simply because Asia didn’t invent democracy or the combustion engine, and it didn’t find a cure for smallpox. England, and Europe, has bequeathed the average Australian kid far more than Asia has, and that will probably be the case for decades, if not centuries, to come.

Well, to bring this back on topic the answer is 52.

It includes Canada and Taiwan.

without the US there would no longer be an ROC, a KMT, a DPP, and we would have never met CSB, or LTH, or CCK, the territory would be PRC with lots of pics of MZD (with never a mention of MTT). We may howevervstill have seen MYJ.

Why do Americans always think that everything concerning the USA has to be common knowledge, even for outsiders.

Sarah Palin thinks that Africa is a country.
How many of you know the number of countries belonging to the EU?
How many countries belonged to the UDSSR? edit: sorry that was unfair English USSR

Taiwan is not Thailand. Many people don’t know this either.

The USA has 50 states. However, it does have other ‘areas’ that are part of the USA. Especially in a non-English country, they are really trying to pin down the number of ‘divisions’ a country has. So 50 states plus the District of Columbia = 51, then plus Puerto Rico = 52, then for other numbers they are presumable counting things like Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands.

Just like Canada: 10 provinces, as every Canadian knows, but for foreigners they may well say 13, since there are 13 ‘divisions’ 10 + 3 territories.

Of course everyone knows:

PHillippines is the 51st state and Taiwan is the 52nd. Ya dummies ! :smiley:

[quote=“Hamletintaiwan”]Why do Americans always think that everything concerning the USA has to be common knowledge, even for outsiders.

Sarah Palin thinks that Africa is a country.
How many of you know the number of countries belonging to the EU?
How many countries belonged to the UDSSR? edit: sorry that was unfair English USSR

Taiwan is not Thailand. Many people don’t know this either.[/quote]

This is the point though. When someone like Sarah Palin exposes herself as a parochial idiot, everyone leaps all over it. Stupid, ignorant Americans and all of that. When someone from another country exposes themselves to be parochial, that’s okay though. Also, really, I don’t think Europeans are anywhere near as worldy as they think they are. Maybe they’re better than Americans, but if you asked them to label a map of Asia, or asked them to tell you the differences between the two main sects of Islam or Buddhism, they’d start to struggle. There is a lot of unjustified arrogance from that continent. Whenever my wife meets Europeans (outside of Taiwan), none of them know anything about Taiwan.

To answer your questions:

  1. 27
  2. 15

I have one for you though.

Q. What’s the capital of Greece?
A. About $9.50.

I’d blame it on movies. Too many jokes about this or that places being the 51st state -think there is a movie by theat name- that you truly do not know.

I went to a British school, ask me if I remember where the stuff is, least of all the political division. :blush:

[quote=“E04teacherlin”]Well, to bring this back on topic the answer is 52.

It includes Canada and Taiwan.[/quote]

No, Taiwan belongs to China :aiyo:

I got a quarter of the world’s population backing my claim :unamused:

[quote=“GuyInTaiwan”]

This is the point though. When someone like Sarah Palin exposes herself as a parochial idiot, everyone leaps all over it. Stupid, ignorant Americans and all of that. When someone from another country exposes themselves to be parochial, that’s okay though. Also, really, I don’t think Europeans are anywhere near as worldy as they think they are. Maybe they’re better than Americans, but if you asked them to label a map of Asia, or asked them to tell you the differences between the two main sects of Islam or Buddhism, they’d start to struggle. There is a lot of unjustified arrogance from that continent. Whenever my wife meets Europeans (outside of Taiwan), none of them know anything about Taiwan.

To answer your questions:

  1. 27
  2. 15

I have one for you though.

Q. What’s the capital of Greece?
A. About $9.50.[/quote]

There you go again.

It’s 9.50 Euro not $ :smiley:

Parochialism at its absolute finest. Ironically, when an American doesn’t know the difference between Thailand or Taiwan, or can’t find Hungary or Paraguay on a map, he’s typically accused of being parochial. Perfectly okay if you’re non-American and parochial though. Why learn anything that doesn’t immediately have an impact on your life? Indeed, all you really need is reality TV for all your educational needs. Well done. :thumbsup:

I actually did learn about America (we studied American history in Year 10) in Australia. Then again, I didn’t go to a government school full of bogans.[/quote]

Americans can’t find anything on a map but could Europeans or Aussies find New Hampshire or North Dakota on a map?