American students are notoriously poor at geography. I could cite you a dozen studies that illustrate my point, but I don't know where to find them. Shortly after the American invasion of Iraq, I gave my students a black outline map of the Middle East and a list of the names of the countries. Not surprisingly at a Christian school, students did best at identifying Israel. Sadly, fewer than 25% could find Israel. A large number of students had trouble telling the diffence between water and land.
My first full time teaching job was at a very small Christian school. It was a lovely place to work and felt like a big family. If a speaker fell through for chapel, which happened quite often, we would divide the chapel into teams and play Bible trivia. For the chapel before Christmas, the questions were Christmas themed. Our headmaster asked, "Where did the wise men come from?" A smart junior's hand shot up enthusiastically (she would later be our valedictorian). Her hand was the first one up, so she stood up, confident that she was about to earn her team a point and earn herself the respect of her peers, and shouted out, "Orientar! Orientar!" After our headmaster explained that the song says, "We three kings of orient are" and that he was looking for "East", she sunk under the pew and did not show her face again until chapel was over.
Every time I hear that song I smile.
Peace
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