Quote:
Originally Posted by Robbie
I can tell you this...my first awakening to reality was in 1984 when I toured down in Peru.
The country was dirt poor. No middle class at all. Either very rich or very, very poor.
And yet all the kids there spoke several different languages and knew everything about the United States, Europe, and the rest of the world (they kept up on world events in all countries on their news broadcasts)
I felt "dumb" next to them. I can only speak English. I knew next to nothing about anything outside the U.S.
And in my travels since then...I've seen the same thing over and over. Whether it be Mexico, South America, The Bahamas, Jamaica, or Europe. I feel like I was cheated in our education system by not being taught different languages from kindergarten forward.
And when you are traveling outside the U.S. you suddenly realize that most people take a "world view" and keep up with events everywhere.
While our news broadcasts report very minimally on foreign affairs.
Just saying...it makes you feel "dumb" comparatively speaking.
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To me there is a difference between dumb and ignorant/lack of education. Like you, I only speak one language (if you don't count knowing how to say 'please smother my balls in cheese' in Spanish
). Looking back on it I wish I would have taken some foreign languages in high school. For that matter I wish it would have been required. But not knowing something is not being dumb, it is simply not being educated on that matter.
To me dumb is the inability to learn or, perhaps even the unwillingness to learn. While there may be many countries where the people have a better overall education, I don't know that that makes me, or this country, dumber than them. It just means we need a better education system.
As for traveling and being blown away by other countries, I have seen both sides of it. When I went to Egypt in 2000 most of the Egyptian people I met were very nice. They would ask if I was American and I would tell them yes. They would ask where in America I was from and I would tell them Oregon and almost every single one of them would ask me if it was by Los Angeles, Chicago or New York. They knew those three cities, but nothing else about the geography of this country. I knew far more about Egypt then they knew about the United States. Were they dumber than me? Hell no. For starters they were speaking English and they just didn't have that piece of knowledge.