How many blogs equal one book?

I’m a lot calmer this week, now that I know K~ isn’t going to be stuck with the world’s worst teachers. Amazing how much wondering about that had been weighing on me. I wonder, do you think at least 20% of parents are in a similar panic this fall? Why 20%? Because that’s apparently the number of Americans who can’t find the United States on a world map. At least, according to the question given to poor Miss Teen South Carolina during the Miss Teen USA pageant. This video is everywhere, but in case you haven’t seen it, here’s her response:

Let me just say, it’s absolutely clear that the poor girl was really nervous and thrown by the question and she went on the Today Show and proved she really is an intelligent young woman. But it’s a funny clip and the unpopular geek in me can’t help taking a dig at a beautiful blond.

Anyway… I’m still tripping over the statistic: One in Five Americans can’t find the US on a world map? What the heck?

Oh but wait, it gets better. Last night Jay Leno brought up this new statistic: One in four adults say they read no books at all in the past year. No. Books. As in None. Nada. Zip. Zilch. Zero Books. Okay, I know we’re all really busy and all that, but how can a person go an entire year without reading a single book?

And lest you think these two statistics are some kind of anomaly, check out these findings from the 2006 National Geographic-Roper Survery of Geographic Literacy :

• 20% of young Americans think Sudan is in Asia.
• Half of young Americans can’t find New York on a map.
• Nearly three-quarters incorrectly named English as the most widely spoken native language.

Looking at these statistics, I’m struck by a couple things: First, a lot of parents are really slackin’ on the job. If kids don’t see mom and dad reading, why would they see any point to picking up a book? And how hard is it to put a world map on the wall? (note to self: go find the world map in my closet and put it back up on the kids’ wall!) And second, the crisis in our schools seems more like an inevitability. Which then makes me even more aware of how important it is to find a quality school district that will challenge my kids all the way through high school. Which leads me back to Denver…

Thankfully, Hubby is more on board with the Denver idea these days. It helped that on Saturday he took some time to look into job options and found a few positions that are very interesting to him. And then we spent one evening looking at the real estate listings in the Denver area and saw all these houses with basements (very few basements here in the PNW) and killer views and 5 bedrooms… and he was won over. Now there’s just the minor detail of finding him the perfect job… But somehow it feels like there’s less pressure now which makes it ever so much easier to leave things in God’s hands and trust everything will work out okay, whether we move to Denver or not.

Oh hey, before I forget again… head over to the Viet Nam Adoption Blog where Rebecca is doing a Viet Nam Adoptive Families Interview Series! She interviews 4 families (including me, but that’s not why you should go read it!) about all things related to adopting from Vietnam. She also has a lot of other great info on her blog, like information about the different provinces and procedures and all kinds of stuff. So head on over and check it out.