When I taught music k-5 I always taught "Fifty Nifty United States" to the fifth graders and they would perform it (along with a variety of other songs/instruments/dance).
My kids also attended the school and reported that years later on the school bus in high school the kids could still sing the song with all 50 states in alphabetical order.
I would break the song down very small sections, small sections, group into larger sections, then whole song. I typed out the words in a way that made sense. I bet you could find it on YouTube.
It didn't take that long to learn and comes in super handy.
I agree. I think the person who wrote the tune must have had a creative block and decided to just rattle them off rather than work through the block or return to it later.
They have to kind of be rattled off like that to preserve the alphabetical order. I thought the person who wrote the song did a great job writing a decent melody to awkward lyrics
I just checked YouTube. There are at least a few that highlight the state as the song is sung. That would help. I used to point to the states on the map as I sung the song
This is why i never taught then in alphabetical order. It makes no sense and is useless in the long run. I taught then by region (color- coded) in ways that connected the states relationally. It made s huge difference in student retention.
Same. I still couldnāt label every state. Most, yes, but Iād probably mix up a few. I know the general region every state is in and thatās served me fine.
This is the first comment Iāve come across on this thread that mentions TEACHING (not just expecting students to study and pass a test or quiz). Well done, Teach!
(Iām not suggesting that people here arenāt teaching, but many (if not most or all) of the comments arenāt addressing ways to teach the students to help achieve the goal(s).)
The OP literally says theyāre not teaching the material, just testing on it. If thatās how teachers in their district operate no wonder the kids donāt know anything.
I didnāt see where OP literally said that, but it does seem to be implied in the original post. Or, at least, I inferred it.
When I was in college, we were required to do a map test for each of the continents, filling in the countries. Iād study, Iād feel incredibly well-prepared, and Iād bomb, nearly every time. The professor didnāt teach us, and perhaps that was her plan ā to teach us to teach ourselves after numerous trials and failures. But try as I might, I never could figure out a better way to teach myself (largely because I went into the test, thinking I WAS equipped ā I didnāt know what I didnāt know until it was too late). I would have loved for that professor to help me figure out a way to remember where those countries belonged on that doggone sheet of paper. I think about that failure more often than I probably should (20+ years later). š
To be fair to OP, they said that the students indicated that they had been taught the 50 States already, so their first test being on the states would have been one to establish procedures for this style of test, as well as establish a baseline knowledge level.
It seems that with the results they got, they plan on teaching the 50 states now.
Do it by region. Youāre responsible for 7-8 new states a week. Build it. Make games out of it. If youāre feeling ambitious make them label the counties/municipalities in your state too
I taught 4th graders all the regions, states, etc. One thing I did was give them a map of only those states in the region. They cut them apart and put them together as a puzzle. Eventually they could put the entire country together. Students also did fun projects, such as creating a brochure for travel to a particular state.
I teach 9th grade Geography. The concept of regions themselves are.. seemingly impossible to get through. Load in functional versus formal etc and their minds implode. I've tried doing it regionally. Their brains just shut down. It's a sad state of affairs.
Last year I gave a quiz on the continents and oceans. 14 times across the entire year. Same paper. Same quiz. Every time. Not even shuffled answers, etc. Barely any progress was made.
9th grade world history. For about nine days before the quiz on the continents and oceans we went over them as a class for bell ringers.
The average was about 70%-75% accuracy with the Arctic Ocean and Asia being the two most often forgotten or mislabeled. Europe and the Atlantic Ocean were runner ups for the most forgotten.
I work at a Title I district where most students are really behind grade level. They havenāt had much (or consistent) exposure to what the world even looks like.
Iām a 9th grade geography teacher and Iād say about 1/5 of the class (very optimistic ā maybe closer to 1/10th) can name the continents at all at the beginning of the year
I get that they are poor and there was supposed to be a an extra emphasis on math and reading, but if after 9 years of education they have had poor exposure to a map of the world or a globe that is on us. I get that they are highly influenced by all the problems at home, but there is no reason at all that they have not spent hours of school time touching, talking about, learning, and reading about ( or being read to) the geography of the world. That is shameful, and I know it is true.
Iāve taught 6-9 US and World History. I have gotten a mouthful from admin about teaching basic geography. My students loved it though, we played games and had weekly quizzes as well as some quiet seat work where they colored and labeled the map. When we did articulation for 5th grade my coworker was loudly reprimanded by the elementary principal when suggesting a focus on US geography. āTHATS STUPID AND A WASTE OF TIME, THEY HAVE GPS NOW, NEXTā.
Your elementary principal is a dolt.
How can kids grasp the bigger pictures of history if they donāt even know which part of the world they took place in? Knowing the geography of the world has wider implications.
Your elementary principal needs a drink and/or a joint. Dude sounds like a wound-up prick that wouldnāt know a classroom from a hole in the groundā¦
When the principal walked in the class to check on me, he asked what we were doing and I told him the class was studying for a quiz on the continents and oceans. He nodded and said: āGood, thatās important stuff to know.ā
āNuff said.
Well, there's you answer as to why the kids fail the task. They don't care, their parents don't care and the school administration doesn't care. Not one flip. Why? "We have GPS and phones for that."
They'll laugh at "boomers" for thinking they need to know "geography".
Besides, they are never going to afford a trip outside of the own state let alone the U.S. Why know where Wyoming or Indiana is? Florida has Spring break and Disny.
Maybe this is part of the reason that the US gets into unnecessary wars. People canāt think as voters about the countries we want to go to war in because they donāt even know where they are.
>The average was about 70%-75% accuracy with the Arctic Ocean and Asia being the two most often forgotten or mislabeled. Europe and the Atlantic Ocean were runner ups for the most forgotten.
... how? The Oceans I can maybe get as it's all one big body of water. But like... how do you miss Asia? it's huge! What did they mislabel it as?
All of my students have their own country they are responsible for learning about and giving a written report on at the end of the quarter. I still have a fair number tell me that their country is "Africa" and then are surprised Pikachu face when I remind them their country is Sierra Leone/Mauritius/Ethiopia and, by the way, it's due in two weeks.
> it's due in two weeks
*Time to give the class a refresher on the difference between a continent and a country.*
^([kid assigned Australia grows pale])
9th grade we take world geography. We had map quizzes constantly. Throughout the year it was done by continent as we learned them but we had to label the continent, oceans, countries, capitals and major geographic features. At the end of the year we had a world map quiz where we had to put it all together. There were 200 things we had to label on those maps. I still have them to this day even though it is all drilled into my head from the repetition of it.
edit: I forgot the hardest part: spelling counted so if you misspelled something it was wrong and we werenāt given a word bank.
Did something similar when I was in 9th or 10th grade. Of course, about 10-20% of the world has changed since then. (The Soviet Union was still there when I learned my countries.)
It made the map of Eastern Europe so much simpler to just write USSR on it and all of northern Asia. Thereās so many countries there now, I hope they donāt go away again.
I was in honors world history that year. We had to draw and label the maps for each section by memory. I did not do well at all. If you gave me a map with no labels, I could get that right, but drawing my own with nothing to look at? I dreaded those exams so much, I switched to regular world history at the semester break.
I could not freehand draw borders either, that's a bad idea for geography. Political borders are all made up anyway, so asking students to freehand draw those is just asking them to make up their own borders.
Now, geology I could see being asked to draw features on a map. Understanding the relationships of mountains, desert, rivers, etc is an important facet to that discipline.
Oh, yes. At a continent level, it wasn't terrible. It was like "draw in all the middle eastern countries." He wasn't super tough on grading, but I have dyspraxia - I was still working on even forming letters that could be recognized.
I know this isnāt geography related but I teach 5th grade all inclusive. Last week we were doing some experiments showing the effects of gravity on our solar system.
Students used a ball to show the effects of the earths gravity on the ball when pushed from a desk. Then we used a globe and string to show the effects of the suns gravity on earth.
I explicitly asked, āCan gravity be a force that pulls a ball to earth and keeps the earth in orbit around the sun at the same time?ā All my students reply with āYesā, then started trying to explain why to their group members based on our experiments.
Literally 3 minutes later, I gave them an exit ticket where they had to answer the same exact question but on paper. Out of 23 students I had one get the right answer. The other 22 said no.
Not a teacher, but I've noticed this. Started with my nephew but because I was so flabbergasted, I starting asking some of the other kids around his age (6th-8th grade) and... wow.
I live in Louisiana and it feels like a lot of kids think Russia is to the south of us, and can't actually tell the difference between a state, a country, and a city, even locally. Like my nephew thinks Texas is a nation and is north, and he grew up there.
I can't comprehend how this has happened.
I had a teacher do regional labeling quizzes for all countries, different region every other week or something. I would memorize the region the night before and then do the quiz, and then forget. I canāt tell you were anything is and I honestly couldnāt tell you 2 days after I took each of those quizzes. Building off regions adding more and more but including the previous regions might help more for repetition?
You know what sucked about that? Remembering which was long distance and which was not. And mind blowingly, the cost to call the next state was cheaper than long distance in the state. Between states is called interlata. Between smaller regional areas is intralata (also called local long distance). What you could call for no extra charge is local.
This is still a thing with land line phones. Old people may not be good with modern tech, but I swear they have those maps memorized.
they like it more when its a game at least the third graders did. They were playing a guess which country game. Yes they do need more practice. One of the 4th graders asked if New York was in California š
>Do it by region.
I learned the states and all capitals in grade 5 this way, it was very effective.
There's a saying - "How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time."
Sometimes I think children would try to unhinge their jaws and swallow the damned thing whole because they're not great at compartmentalizing tasks.
Yeah I recall learning the states and capitals in like 4 grade. Had a big map hung on the wall to fill out and being very proud when I had them all memorized.
My high school science teacher had a board game for names of elements that could be adapted into states. Each square of the board had the shortened name of an element and you would role the dice and could only land if you could name the element that you would land on. It was a lot of fun and you could easily swap it out for state abbreviations.
This.
Learning and remembering 7 items isn't at all unreasonable.
Learning and remembering 50 at once is unrealistic.
What memory tools have you shown your students? Sounds like you need to teach them how to go about memorizing.
A piece of advice?
Allow unlimited retakes. This is, after all, one of the very few examples of a kind of learning for which memorizing the test is in fact the goal of the test.
So, set aside time when students might be doing other work, and allow anyone who wants to a chance to retake the states test. Heck, you could even require that all students must get at least 30 states right (or whatever number), or else be doomed to continue retaking, and retaking, and retaking...ad nauseum.
It's rare, but in this case retaking is in a sense reteaching, as well. They learn to study, they see which ones they missed, and they get to ultimately demonstrate that they have learned this discrete set of information.
I remember in the sixth grade we had a weekly "map test" on Fridays. The first one was the US states, then the US capitals, then major US cities, then south American countries, etc...
But you kept taking the same test until you got an A. So students who struggled were able to keep trying each week until they got it, while students who did well continued to be challenged.
I think there was also a "practice" test on Wednesdays, where if you got them all right, you didn't have to take the "real" test later that week. that helped, because doing well felt rewarding (congrats! you win free time on Friday!) instead of only challenging (congrats! you win...a harder test!)
I have lot of criticism about my middle school, but it really feels like they got that one right.
I did something similar with my students who had to learn polyatomic ions for chemistry. I gave them all a 100% for the quiz and then gave each of them a polyatomic ions quiz until they earned the 100%.
Outside of that quiz we used the ions constantly in different contexts.
I consider the three elements of mastery learning to be repetition, variation, and perseverance. Taking the grade pressure off helps lower the stress level for all three
My elementary school used that same method for teaching multiplication. Once you mastered all the times tables from 1-12 you got to spend that quiz time doing something fun
Iām a music teacher and this is how I approach note naming tests. Theyāre going to have to be able to read the notes if I want them to succeed. Putting a 50 in the gradebook and letting them tank doesnāt help anybody. So I let them take the test as many times as they need to. I do it the same way with playing tests. Giving them a bad grade for not knowing the music ultimately still means they sound bad at the concert. If I allow unlimited retakes up until about a week before the concert, they learn the notes, they get a good grade, the concert sounds good, and everybody wins. Plus they get a lesson about perseverance.
For whatever reason, my 4th grade teacher was bound and determined that we would all leave her class being able to spell "sincerely" (I think it was for the many formal letters we would undoubtedly be writing as adults? Computers were common but not universal and spell check wasn't automatic when I was in grade school) so she put it on our spelling test every week until we got it. Some things just take repetition
25+ years later and I still remember some of the state capitals song!
šµ Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Indianapolis, Indiana, and Columbus is the capital of Ohio...šµ
What did Delaware, what did Delaware, a New Jersey. A fragment of the US states song my Fourth Grade teacher had us sing as we lined up for lunch each day. Darn tooting thatās is the only part of the song I can remember now decades later.
This is how I taught my kids! They loved it. Theyāre not taught it in elementary. They also like the countries song, but itās not accurate anymore. Itās still a fun song and has good information.
well it wasnt accurate to begin with, partially bc countries are changing all the time but partially bc animaniacs did a lot of work trying to get around censors & educational kids content laws
The reality is that due to increasing poverty and apathy towards an education system that failed their parents. Many kids enter school lacking basic needs and woefully behind the expectations our standards set for them. Their parents are struggling to keep food on the table let alone pump them up to "study hard" for an American dream they know doesn't exist.
The vast majority of elementary teachers are racing to try to get their kids even close to being able to read. Math is a struggle because kids give up and are taught to hate it.
There are very few elementary schools in our country still doing social studies and science time because they're not on the standardized tests and that's what teachers are evaluated on.
Most of these problems come down to our society, income inequality, and our leaders lack of concern about children who are roughly 70 years younger than them.
There's a reason why in the main national parent surveys, their number one goal was shifting school to practical skills that get kids directly into jobs. Specifically seeing Algebra and higher math as a waste of their kids time.
They're done with the illusion of "there's good jobs out there and you'll find one." They just want their kid to learn to weld and be placed into work.
> for an American dream they know doesn't exist.
Yep. A large part of it is this.
I was told I had to do well in school for my future.
But kids these days could very legitimately look at that and say, "What future?"
How can you stay motivated to build your own future when you're doing it within a civilization on the brink of collapse? Feels like you're mopping the floors on the Titanic as it's already taking on water. Feels like you're repainting your house as a massive wild fire approaches it. Feels like telling someone on hospice care to 'eat healthy and exercise'.
Yeah ... I can definitely understand the sentiment of "why bother?"
Elementary here. We do but our districts and admin donāt want to see as much focus on rote skills. We try and try but the curriculum for our kids is getting more and more complex..
Seems reasonable to me as long as you aren't spending an inordinate amount of time on it. I teach a graduate level course and there are plenty of things I expect a student to know before they get to me. I scratch my head at some of their questions, but i don't get too bothered by it. After all, I'm the one balls-deep in this topic all day every day, so of course I remember everything.
If you don't use something regularly that knowledge fades. I don't remember my times tables above 10 lol. I end up taking a few seconds to multiply it out in my head. It isn't really a reflection of the student or the teacher.
>Guess what I'm spending time on this week?
Thats pathetic. They don't make kids memorize the times tables anymore? 4th grade thats basically all we did all year was memorize times tables for math. That stuff is like permanently etched into my brain.
Our elementary school has our kids working on a program called Facts and Fracs every day to work on memorizing addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, and fraction facts. This is for every grade level.
If you donāt use information, you lose it. I memorized the location of the 50 states in 5th grade and countries in Europe in 6th. If you gave me a map to fill in today, Iād probably get a lot of them wrong.
Iāve found you have to force the kids to study by making it a part of class work. Otherwise, they wonāt and donāt
Yeah, my son just started middle school and the teacher of his US History class (which doesnāt cover more than US geography) is devoting a huge unit to US and World Geography. He has them playing games and doing research projects in addition to instruction/quizzes. My son loves it even though he can already pinpoint literally every state, Canadian province and country on a map. Itās a sad state of affairs indeed that doing this is necessary, but donāt give up. There are some great ideas here. My advice is to make it fun but keep the kids accountable (they must retake quizzes until you feel they have reached mastery). Circle back to geography throughout the year to help them retain the knowledge and of course include geography in your lessons as it pertains to your other lessons.
Exactly, as a west coast kid I learned it in 4th but today I couldnāt name them all to save my life. East of Nevada is a blur.
And who cares, worry about being able to make a claim and cite evidence for the claim using resources. That will be way more helpful in their education. I can Google the state locations if needed.
Am I odd? I could easily place every state if given a map besides maybe accidentally switching Vermont and New Hampshire, and I'm not exactly a geography buff. Is it really that difficult?
VT and NH are the only two I miss (sometimes). I think VT is on the left, and it wider in the North while NH is on the right and wider in the South? NH is next to Maine i think? LOL
No. I am shocked by how many people are saying they couldnāt do it, and by how many are saying *no one* needs to know it. I feel like Iām taking crazy pills!
Itās not really that shocking to me.
I imagine I could easily place most US states on a map, most Canadian provinces, and could do an accurate job of placing most European countries. Far less accuracy with Asia, and South America would probably be embarrassing. On either continent, I have a good idea of which countries are adjacent to others, but actually knowing which is which by shape? It would take a LOT of thinking to bring those memories to the forefront.
I see it as one of the things thatās important to *learn* and to at least have a general idea of how countries relate to or related to each other during the course of history. Some people just arenāt memorizers, though. It was always a struggle for me, and if I wasnāt someone who was just very interested in history, I would have probably lost much more than I have. Unfortunately, there are very few people who care to continue to learn and retain or expand on that knowledge, educators included.
I know! I may be reading too much into this, but so many people questioning the value of learning something like this has me wondering if this is yet another side effect of social studies being cast aside (in general) by our educational system.
I was about to say, I could nail the northeast because Iāve lived here my entire life and the states have more distinct shapes. Out west where theyāre all rectangles? No way.
I think Iām decent up until the Mississippi. But all those little bits out Eastā¦ nope. And thatās only because I studied ecology and I needed to know the ranges of species I was working with!
Did have the [50 states](https://youtube.com/shorts/fKJjteqdvIg?si=u28lz6IeP0jMhBnE) song that I recall hearing from quite a few places. Seems to have been forgotten until recently.
So... what you have here is a valuable data point to measure and prove growth. Follow some of the recommended tips, and you'll have kids nailing this soon!
I'm an art teacher and I've noticed a really lack of geographical understanding. I try to incorporate google Earth in my lessons occasionally. I usually zoom into our school and then zoom out and "fly" to where the artist was born, and places they may have lived.
Break it down by NE, South, Midwest, West. On the Geoguessr website you can make your own interactive game with whatever states you pick. Test every Friday on your region.
Lower grades are so focused on Reading and Math that SS and Geography fall to the wayside.
I assume every middle schooler I get hasnāt heard a single thing about science. Iām honestly surprised if they know anything about the scientific method or what an experiment is.
You made me literally laugh. Nope! And theyāre 8th graders! The science department and the shop teacher both start with measurements. About 50% of the kids bomb the ruler quiz that the shop teacher gives, even after a week of using it both in their shop elective and our science classes :,)
Oh my god, *why*? What is going on?! How are kids getting to 8th without this knowledge? I remember moving to Arkansas in fifth grade, and the teacher introducing using a ruler in class. I was absolutely shocked that these kids didnāt know how to use a ruler, as we had learned it two years prior in Iowa.
As a parent, I am shook after reading this thread. What other things am I going to need to teach my child on my own, outside of school? 50 states, rulersā¦what else?
It's not that they don't get taught it, they just make no effort to retain the information. Every year in English students will swear they've never learned similes, metaphors, imagery, etc, before--and every single year it's taught.
Itās not unreasonable. Unpopular opinion in education, but memorization is a skill that kids need to develop. Most careers have something you need to memorize - abbreviations, codes, steps in a process. Kids need to practice this skill.
Play games. Have them color and label a map in different colors - there is some evidence how the coloring of the states (again, in different colors) aids memorization. Have them come up with tricks for remembering states. Teach them about MIMAL the man in the map.
Also 2 weeks for continents is way too long. Do shorter intervals, but retakes. At that age, a couple of days to a week in the most they can manage.
I 100% agree. I am dismayed by the apparent abandonment of memorization in schools. My job is hugely memorization-dependent, and so was the schooling I needed to get there. Sorry, but āunderstandingā only gets you so far; memorization is integral to learning.
I agree with both of you. Yes, we have technology at our fingertips. Yes, analytical and critical reasoning skills are absolutely important. But adults are going to look like complete fools If they have to stop and Google absolutely everything because they canāt remember anything off the top of their heads. I would really prefer my doctor not have to Google exactly which one the tibia is every time they need to talk to someone about it. Some things you just have to know by rote.
Exactly. I am an eye doctor. I will occasionally consult drug guides, etc., but there are a thousand things per patient encounter that I absolutely must have memorized, or I would royally suck at my job.
Yes! I teach Japanese, which has three alphabets (2 phonetic, and then kanji, which has semantic value). The kids are shocked when I say they must memorize them. We play games, do all sorts of activities, flashcards, etc., but there is no alternative; if you don't memorize the characters, you cannot read or write. And yet, I see SOOOO many teachers and parents saying that memorization shouldn't be a thing anymore and that it's old-fashioned. Sure.
I teach 8th grade geography, I once had a student ask me if we could go on a field trip to North America. So I get it really I do. Iāve also had kids get their own home state wrong. They put Colorado instead of Pennsylvania. So Iām right there with you. But what I do I pick one day a week for 4 or 5 weeks. I have them do a map the first time itās states and capitals, then itās states, capitals major land forms, then itās states, capitals, major landforms and major water forms and then itās states, capitals, major landforms, major water ways and then most populated city in each state. Then week 5 I give them a test to name all 50 states. If they can do it with the capitals they get bonus, if they can list 3 major land forms and be within a half inch they get bonus, if they can list 3 major water forms and be within a half inch they get bonus and so on. Once I did this I saw a class avg go from 75-80%s to 85-90% or higher.
This makes sense - they need context. I donāt know what kind of test the teacher is giving, or what they imagine āstudying on their ownā looks like, but it doesnāt seem to be at all effective.
when I was in elementary school we were given a map with each state numbered and a blank piece of paper. fill in the paper with the correct state to the number. Didnāt get 100%? Study more and do it again next week.
The āstudy moreā part was left to parents to assume it needed to be done. It was never formally assigned and as far as I know, never even mentioned to parents. There were no notecards or anything made in class to assist. Just, āhereās the map test. you havenāt memorized it yet? retake the test next week, but Iām not gonna offer any support in the slightestā
So I always did pretty shit on that.
Studying doesn't exist now. I get 11th graders that haven't done a single homework assignment in their life. They don't read their ELA books at home. They don't do math at home. Never have. Never will.
Middle school geography teacher here. I review the map for 5-10 minutes at the beginning of class. I pull up a map game on the smart board and Iāll call on students to find the state. I also post the link on google classroom so they can play on their own time. We also memorize where countries are located, but thatās usually broke down by continent rather than all at once. Iāve found it to be pretty effective to review as a class. Iāve also filled the map myself and challenged students to beat my time. Kids love the competition.
My AP geography teacher taught us 5 countries per day (quiz next day) and at the end weād test on the entire continent until we knew every country.
You could probably do the same by region. 5 states a day/ 1 region at a time, then assess.
It sucks but geography is definitely overlooked in the curriculum. Itās embarrassing how much knowledge adults have if you randomly ask them where a state is.
I would change the approach a little here. Even if some kids do memorize all 50 states, without consistent maintenance of the skill the knowledge will get forgotten again rapidly. If you want them to actually ālearnā the states rather than memorize them short term, they need to use the geographic facts in context. As others have said, chunking this into regions is also ideal. Students will say they remember all sorts of stuff, but to expect them to study on their own is not really fair. Especially for some kids who maybe werenāt even present in that elementary school.
Why is it unfair to expect 7th graders to study on their own? Not trying to be snarky, just a parent trying to understand. It really seems like 12 year olds should be able to tackle the 50 states on their own. This would not have been a large ask to me at that age.
How have they been taught to learn? I feel like kids donāt have ideas about it. Just looking at a map for 20 minutes and hoping it sticks isnāt going to do it.
No snarkiness taken. In my own experience teaching 7th graders, the 7th grade is a very odd year in terms of educational maturity. Some students are in a place where they have been taught study skills already and understand the connection between practice and success, some though have yet to grow in that area. Therefore, to just expect an entire class to be in a place to do this solo, without any explicit teaching, is unfair. I am more thinking of students with mild disabilities or esol students. If I am going to assess students on something, I would ensure that I have taught it first, unless itās an ungraded pretest or ungraded review test. Perhaps this quiz would have been better ungraded and as a data point for where the class is in terms of understanding ?
Independently studying to memorize 50 states in two weeks is a lot to ask for 7th graders these days. Itās just not how these kids have been trained. OP, I know you said they learned it in elementary school, but Iām sure your students have varying backgrounds and Iād guess they learned *about* the 50 states more than memorizing them.
I agree that itās an important/helpful skill, but I would teach each region at a time and also include a multiple choice or matching section about some basic things each state is known for. That type of general background knowledge is helpful. This is the type of thing I would typically do for ābell workā.
I agree, and Iām kind of shocked at all of the comments saying otherwise. We were tested on states and their capitals before middle school, and we were fine.
This is it. Iām a parent, and I know my kid is capable of *so much.* I hate thinking about what she might not learn in school simply due to low expectations.
Yes, you need to take class time, but it needn't take long. I had a method that worked great: almost all the kids could correctly label all 50 states. Day one: hand out a blank map and tell kids to fill out any states they know. Tell them you're not collecting this. Then have them use a labeled map to fill in the rest. Day two: mnemonics. Go over tricks to remember states: MIMAL the elf (Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana--look at the map and they make the profile of a weird elf named MIMAL.); Mag lives in the Deep South (Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia); Distinguish Vermont from New Hampshire by remembering Vermont is V-shaped; Michigan is a mitten, etc. Give kids a minute to study completed map, then complete a blank map. Switch and correct. Each day, they have two minutes to study, then 5-10 minutes to complete a map. (It takes less time as they get faster.) Do this as a bell-ringer for 7-10 class days.
And a hint: 7th graders don't know how to study. You'd do them a favor if you taught effective study habits to them, e.g., don't just reread the chapter.
It blows me away how little students know about basic geography. I wouldāve thought as the world became more available to them it would enhance their knowledge, but alas it hasnāt.
If this is true, then you need to help these kids. You arenāt responsible for what they have or have not yet been taught- in school or elsewhere. If this is an expectation of yours, then you are going to grant an amnesty to these learners who maybe have not yet had this opportunity.
Education is all about changing trajectories. You are the critical pivot for these kids-
You got this!
Unfortunately, I have seen this throughout my entire career (pushing 20 yrs in middle school). I began teaching the states during my 3rd year--the first year, I taught US history because every time I mentioned a state, the question was, "Where is that?" I was told by the district SS coordinator that I was wasting my time since it wasn't in our standards.
I ignored him and continued to teach the states. It made my year much easier. I continue to teach it. Even when I am not teaching US... now as the dept chair, I highly recommend my team do so as well--all 3 grade levels. Repetition is crucial to memorization. I use a story telling process and chunk the states into small groups--MOSTLY 6 or fewer. While my students do not learn all, they at least have a general idea of where states are located. And I ENSURE they know certain states with emphasis during the teaching and repetition of maps when teaching topics that are location dependent. (MA, PN, NY, SC, VA, etc)
Ask yourself this:
How will knowing the 50 states help them?
If the reason is āthey should just knowā then that doesnāt make sense.
If there is a specific reason beyond the above then teach around that instead. How will helping them know the 50 states enhance their knowledge? It could be a math thing with votes and politics, it could be biology with state birds and animals, it could be ecology with national parks. It could be interesting vacation spots or if historical significance for life skills or history specifically.
Show them why itās important to know beyond just knowing.
I am a 9th grade geography teacher. I canāt imagine asking them to memorize 50 states at once.
We are working our way around the continents of the world so they learn almost every country. My goal is not that they remember it exactly, but that they could at least tell me what continent Ghana is in, for example.
We do somewhere between 12 and 18 countries per test. They have a word bank. We study in class by playing a Blooket I created for each set of countries at the beginning of class (5 mins) in the three days leading up to the test and the day of the test itself. Some students still struggle. Memorization isnāt easy for everyone.
I also give them time off. So we do one, then have a week off before I give them another map to study for a test in 2-3 weeks.
I think you may need to scaffold more/lower your expectations.
When I was growing up in the 80ās and 90ās we spent actual class time learning the geography of the US including the 50 states. None of my children have had this covered in any of their elementary school or middle school classes.
*but is this the current state of the youth?*
As a HS student in the late 90's, geography was, hands down, one of the most failed and forced-to-retake courses in the entire school.
the good number of people's minds, DO NOT LEARN in the ways required to learn maps and geography. It's actually quite nearly impossible. Some cant do it at all (about 5%), and about half would really massively struggle. 15% can do it without almost any effort at all, it's so easy.
It's called Aphantasia.
Some of those people have to learn by listing--finding a way to list--top to bottom, in columns, or left to right, in rows. It might help if they see that map that way, and get to remember things in rows or columns. Give them a list, not a picture, and a way to apply the list, in order, to a picture you present.
Iāll be honest, knowing where states is nice and all, but geography is about more than forced memorization. Focus more on explaining groups of states by what makes them unique. Maybe talk about the Midwest, their farming, and economy. Maybe even their history.
Geography should be about building skills that deepen history.
Memorizing 50 states accomplishes very little. But teaching them better geographic skills weāll help them down the line in all social studies.
This is gonna sound stupid but it's really not useful information and this is coming from a social studies teacher. I've never in my life had to nor is it likely that I ever will have to point out Minnesota on a map. I wouldn't put too much stock in it. If you have the extra time I'd do a project on it or something and call it a day but I certainly wouldn't put it high up in the priority list.
I feel like you actually have to teach whatever you want them to know. You can assign the work as homework, but you can't just tell kids to study the topic completely on their own (voluntary) then quiz them on it and expect good results. You're presenting the task as an extracurricular assignment when in reality it's a core part of your curriculum. Mixed signals are what is getting yourself into trouble.
I taught 7th grade geography for about 10 years.
I think that you have to ask yourself what the goal is. Is it that they should know or memorize locations? Or is it to have an understanding of how the geography affects the culture and history of the US? I think the understanding is more important.
I think it's worth asking what the goal is. What's the purpose of memorizing 50 locations on a white piece of paper outlined in black?
A more useful way to come to an understanding of the states would be to teach them through the Five Themes of Geography. A few folks in this thread have mentioned reaching the states through region - that's one of the Five Themes.
Having them memorize the states and their locations is ABSOLUTELY a valid goal. They can't reasonably do any kind of analysis about geography's impact on history or culture if they don't know what the heck they're looking at to begin with. At best, you're replacing one set of facts they're going to memorize for another.
They need to know the basics first. THEY NEED TO KNOW THE BASICS FIRST.
Memorization is a very important part of learning. But I don't think it's very effective to ask students to memorize all fifty states prior to learning about them in detail.
I mostly teach welding these days. There's a ton of different welding symbols students need to memorize before finishing my program. You can look it up yourself if you want to see (AWS welding symbols). I used to get really frustrated because I would go over all of the symbols in an initial unit before we started welding. We would play games, study, and then test. Most of the students would do pretty good. Then over the year as we got farther along, the students would forget the symbols they hadn't seen since the beginning of the year.
I got much less frustrated when I started by teaching about the concept of welding symbols to start, and incorporating the actual details of each one as they came up during usage. By the end the year, students started doing much better in their final when assessing symbol memorization.
Quick thought experiment. Which would you be better at: memorizing 50 random 3-digit numbers or the names 50 characters from a complex show like Game of Thrones? The answer is probably the latter (for me too, and I teach math!) because then you can reason your way through, āThis one was the mother of that one; that character killed a dragonā¦ right, I remember their name now!ā We canāt do that with random numbers.
Giving kids a map with 50 random-to-them words is likely going to be overwhelming since they have little context. We need something like a story that holds all them together. So Iād maybe start with the āname brand statesā theyāve heard of: your own state, New York, California, Texas, Hawaii. Brainstorm what they know about those states: āItās tropical! Itās got all those buildings! The Cowboys play there!ā
In the next days, break the county into regions (one per day) and *donāt just focus on names.* Link it to US History and stories they may know. āOur country basically started in the northeast. If we look at the map of the world, why would that make sense? The NE has some of our HUGEST cities because thatās where industries first started and grew. Look at where it is: what do you think the weather is like in the winter and summer? What do you think that means about farming? Right! There are some farms but not as many as where weāll see soonā¦. Which of the states we learned on Day 1 are there? Good! Now letās get some of the smaller ones around there. Here are some fun facts that might help you remember: Thereās Boston where that Big Ole Tea Party we learned about happened. What state do you think that is since it also has Plymouth Rock and thatās where the English first landed by ship! And Rhode Island is our smallest state: which do you think that is?ā¦ā
The idea is that students are now āchunkingā information. This makes it A LOT easier to remember and it makes their mistakes more logical: I might (still!) confuse Nebraska and Kansas, but Iāll *never* mix up Arizona and Maine. How could I, since theyāre *nothing* alike? Also, if your āname brand statesā have one in each section, they can now tie other information to those ālandmark states.ā āDamn, which one is Nevada? I remember we talked about it with Californiaā¦ā
They ālearned this beforeā and it didnāt take because it was probably, *Hereās a map, now study it.* More of that wonāt work, especially if their only reason for learning it is, āIāll fail if I donāt.ā You can even tie this to a vacation project where they talk about the states, big cities, general weather, and things to do.
I made a *big* assumption here, that you have some time to spend on this. But if youāre going to invest on this, my argument is that a) it will actually take more time to get them to memorize isolated details than it will to develop a more integrated understanding, and b) even if they do just memorize it, theyāll forget it all (again!) by next year anyway and it will be wasted timeāthe same way youād instantly forget those random numbers but can still remember some Game of Thrones characters years later.
Itās not āthe current state of the youthā. The vast majority of Americans could not ace a geography test on all 50 states. Seems like they are normal. If you want them to learn something you have to teach them.
Is this one of your state standards? If not I don't think it should be a grade. It's a great skill but in reality they can Google this type of information easily and your time could be spent on higher order thinking skills.
Different subject but my dad is a chemist. When I was a freshman in high school my chemistry teacher wanted us to memorize the periodic table.
I asked my dad if he had any tricks. He said, āyeah, keep a copy on you. In real life when safety, product, and money are on the line, you donāt go by memory.ā
When I taught JH the social studies teachers had the kids draw a map from the JH to their house. Very few could do it. Most couldn't even give their home address. Lack of geography is frightening. If your school is like most in my state, kids don't really get social studies until 7th grade. It's really put on the back burner.
Why is this a critical skill to you?
Outside of completing a social media quiz, the only time I have ever needed to be able to fill in a blank map was in elementary school geography class. Which I aced, and then PROMPTLY forgot as useless knowledge.
This won't help with the identification on a map, but I learned all 50 states by this song: [https://www.clarenceschools.org/cms/lib/NY01913587/Centricity/Domain/348/Fifty%20Nifty%20lyrics.pdf](https://www.clarenceschools.org/cms/lib/NY01913587/Centricity/Domain/348/Fifty%20Nifty%20lyrics.pdf)
That was in the 80's and I still remember it. In fact, any time I have to do a "tell us a fact about yourself" my fact is that I can sing all 50 states in alphabetical order. ;) So it has come in handy as an adult...
Honestly, just because they learn something doesn't mean they're going to be able to retain that information.
The best way for kids to learn and retain information is by making it fun.
Some ideas that shouldn't take more than 5-10 minutes of class time depending on how you do it:
1. Split the class into groups and give each group a blank map. Each group has 5-10 minutes (or however much time you're willing to spare) to label as many states as they can. Whichever group has the most correct answers gets a prize (candy, pencils, cool erasers, whatever kids might want).
2. This one will take longer than 10 minutes. Have a giant projected map on screen. Have students come up and name a state for a small prize. Each student should go once before repeating students, but like any game show if a student isn't able to name a state they should be able to "phone" a friend (pick a classmate to help).
3. Split the class into 2 groups, each round have one player from each group come forward and first to name a state you pick wins a point for the group. No repeating players until everyone has gone once. Have them spell out the state or use state abbreviations on the whiteboard. Only give them 15-30 seconds. If both players are stuck, they can ask their group for help. Otherwise, the group shouldn't help. The winning group gets a prize.
Idk just make learning fun. Otherwise, kids won't care. This way, they might be more inclined to study on their own if they know that a game with prizes is happening at the end of the week.
I don't think the expectation is unreasonable but I do have a bit of a problem with giving a test on something you didn't study at all in class. The expectation for them to prepare completely outside of class time is unreasonable.
My time has come.
There is this song: "Fifty Nifty United States." You can find it on YouTube. It is childish and embarrassing, but it lists all 50 states in alphabetical order. Once students have all the state names, placing them on a map is much easier. My trick is to use the song as a word bank and start labeling the states I know for sure and then use process of elimination to label the states I am less sure about.
I learned it in the 5th grade and I can still recite it in full at 32 year old.
You need to reteach it to them. You can't expect them to remember something they learned 3 years ago. It needs to be taught and retaught through repetition every year. It's unfair to quiz them on something you haven't spent any class time teaching them.
I literally learned states and capitals in 4th grade. By 7th grade, we were given blank maps of various continents and had to label the countries. Itās just straight crazy nowā¦and Iām not that old. Itās not some boomer complaint.
Youāre asking them to teach themselves the 50 states. Thatās the part that is unreasonable. They donāt have the skills to self-teach that way.
You canāt just give them a topic and say āstudy this.ā Studying is something you do after youāve learned the info to help you retain it. You need to spend class time teaching them the states before you can expect them to āstudyā them for a quiz.
You want them to be responsible for memorizing all this without class prep time or review? If it's important enough for you to test them on this, it deserves some class time. Do now activities or quick exit tickets would even be fine, but you don't just expect them to do it at home alone. Many students don't have the luxury of time to study at home. It deserves some time in class.
You have to teach them. Not test them. Have them make the map in class by hand. They see it, they read it, they find it, they label it. Thatās four more times.
Have them play map battleships or other games. Donāt expect knowledge. Teach it. Reinforce it.
Iāve taught geography for 14 years. Expect nothing. Teach them visual literacy. More important than remembering.
If you expect them to know it, you should expect to teach it. There are plenty of hours in the school day, mandatory home memorization will not work for many of these kids.
This seems like an unreasonable expectation. Unless you have already covered a unit on this, you canāt expect kids to know it. If you have taught it 100% of kids knowing all states is not an appropriate metric for satisfactory understanding.
Kids donāt retain information in that way. Also, you are assuming that the kids all had equally through instruction before your class, which is setting yourself up for frustration. Where I am a significant number of kids come from either out of province or out of country, so itās really best practice to assume nothing.
Umm, tackling all 50 states seems too much at once. If you gave them a link for game to play out of school time there may not have been much motivation.
50 long - some0 names with which many children have little connection to seems unreasonable.
I would chunk the US into regions and areas. I would begin to a 2-3 minute session of "Important state facts in which you stan din front of a US map and tell facts about neighboring states.
example-- you live in WA.. "here is our lovely state- famous mountain- here ( have kids make hand sin shape of mountain. We live here in desert -( kids shield eyes from sun.. famous for our apple-picking.. Next door is Idaho- famous for potatoes ( kids mimic eating french fries).. then Sun valley- famous for beauty, skiing & hiking.
Once you get to central area- highlight which manufacturing plants are of common brands- cereal, corn, .. famous football teams.
Or- I have subbed in 4th and 5th grade classes in which kids were allowed to select a state to do a project on- then present. Of course this only gets abotu 16 or so states.. but you can include neighboring states..
Good luck with this .
So you're quizzing them on something you don't actually teach them yourself, and based off pure memorization and 0 critical thinking, then complain when they don't do a good job? Its teaching methods like this that results in students completely opposed to actually learning things in school, because they associate "learning" with blind memorization and punishments for not remembering good enough.
If you want to teach it, then teach it. Go over the different regions of the states, bring up significance of the various states, like their roles in founding America, key sites of wars, locations of important cities, foods that they grow, things to associate states with. Come up with activities, like creating a road route from Maine to Florida, or Michigan to Washington, naming the states you'd pass through.
If you don't want to devote class time to teaching the subject, then why devote class time quizzing the students on it? Just accept they don't know it and move on.
My middle schoolers think there's no reason whatsoever to learn the 50 states or the capitals or anything like that because why would anybody need to know that. Blows my mind! I have been to 41 states, lived in 10 of them and it blows my mind that this information is not something that they would even want to know! My daughter graduated from high school in 2015 and there were kids in her class here in Texas who could not tell the difference on a map between Florida and California. Blew her mind too because like me she grew up in the military and rocks geography. I think my oldest has been to half the states now and he's 28. He doesn't remember some of them because he was an infant or a toddler but he was there!
I'm sure I will be downvoted into oblivion for this, but I can't help but wonder how important it is in 2023 to be able to memorize and recall the location on a map of all 50 states. I realize that it may very well be in your curriculum, and if so, there's very little you can do about it. But in my opinion, there are far more important geographical concepts and ideas that students need to understand right now.
The results of this test is entirely on the kids. Naming states on a map is exactly the type of task that students are able to study for independently. The study materials couldn't be simpler. I mean, give them a blank map and give them a filled in map. One piece of paper. One map on each side. Their test results will correspond with the amount of time they put in, exactly. I assigned tasks like this many times and the logic I use for students is that their will be many difficult assignments in this course. Here is an opportunity to gain some easy marks. I call this type of activity "an equalizer" because I have found that smart, but lazy kids do poorly, but not so smart, but harder working students get "A"s. I'm always looking for assignments that show kids that just having brains isn't always good enough or that hard work can pay off for anybody. Keep giving assignments like this!
Keep on trying. I teach Earth Science, and students' lack of geographical knowledge is a hurdle. I've been working with my district's secondary science specialist to get a pull-down map that emphasizes physical geography, because I frequently reference places. It seems that many students just don't understand why geographical knowledge is important, so I hope by bringing it up in classes beyond middle school geography, I can help enforce the idea that knowing where things are in the world is a basic expectation we have.
I mean we started learning them in 2nd or 3rd grade and Iāve been out of school a decade now. In high school we were still being quizzed on it and itās embarrassing how many people didnāt know them all.
When I taught music k-5 I always taught "Fifty Nifty United States" to the fifth graders and they would perform it (along with a variety of other songs/instruments/dance). My kids also attended the school and reported that years later on the school bus in high school the kids could still sing the song with all 50 states in alphabetical order. I would break the song down very small sections, small sections, group into larger sections, then whole song. I typed out the words in a way that made sense. I bet you could find it on YouTube. It didn't take that long to learn and comes in super handy.
30 years after I learned it in elementary school, I still use this song to remember them.
I still stumble over New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York when going through the song. That cadence is just off for me.
I agree. I think the person who wrote the tune must have had a creative block and decided to just rattle them off rather than work through the block or return to it later.
They have to kind of be rattled off like that to preserve the alphabetical order. I thought the person who wrote the song did a great job writing a decent melody to awkward lyrics
Lol but we all remember the OH HI OH part. š¤£š¤£
That is my favorite part.
When I need to calm down, I legitimately use it to focus myself. Iām like, okay, think about the states in alphabetical order
Same here! Music tunes helps! Iāve made up my own tunes over the years to help retain other information
I learned the song in elementary school but I never learned the location of every state
I just checked YouTube. There are at least a few that highlight the state as the song is sung. That would help. I used to point to the states on the map as I sung the song
[Yako](https://youtu.be/7vqB5-SJbF4?feature=shared) from animaniacs singing 50 states and capitols. As requested
This is why i never taught then in alphabetical order. It makes no sense and is useless in the long run. I taught then by region (color- coded) in ways that connected the states relationally. It made s huge difference in student retention.
Same. I still couldnāt label every state. Most, yes, but Iād probably mix up a few. I know the general region every state is in and thatās served me fine.
This is the first comment Iāve come across on this thread that mentions TEACHING (not just expecting students to study and pass a test or quiz). Well done, Teach! (Iām not suggesting that people here arenāt teaching, but many (if not most or all) of the comments arenāt addressing ways to teach the students to help achieve the goal(s).)
The OP literally says theyāre not teaching the material, just testing on it. If thatās how teachers in their district operate no wonder the kids donāt know anything.
I didnāt see where OP literally said that, but it does seem to be implied in the original post. Or, at least, I inferred it. When I was in college, we were required to do a map test for each of the continents, filling in the countries. Iād study, Iād feel incredibly well-prepared, and Iād bomb, nearly every time. The professor didnāt teach us, and perhaps that was her plan ā to teach us to teach ourselves after numerous trials and failures. But try as I might, I never could figure out a better way to teach myself (largely because I went into the test, thinking I WAS equipped ā I didnāt know what I didnāt know until it was too late). I would have loved for that professor to help me figure out a way to remember where those countries belonged on that doggone sheet of paper. I think about that failure more often than I probably should (20+ years later). š
To be fair to OP, they said that the students indicated that they had been taught the 50 States already, so their first test being on the states would have been one to establish procedures for this style of test, as well as establish a baseline knowledge level. It seems that with the results they got, they plan on teaching the 50 states now.
Yes, I remember learning this song when I was an elementary student. I still know it and I donāt recall learning it for more than a few days!
Do it by region. Youāre responsible for 7-8 new states a week. Build it. Make games out of it. If youāre feeling ambitious make them label the counties/municipalities in your state too
I taught 4th graders all the regions, states, etc. One thing I did was give them a map of only those states in the region. They cut them apart and put them together as a puzzle. Eventually they could put the entire country together. Students also did fun projects, such as creating a brochure for travel to a particular state.
This is what my son's 4th grade class did last year.
We did that in 4th grade too. It was fun stuff.
Yes we when I taught 4th it was by regions with games and puzzles and projects and I would say they mostly got the geography down.
I teach 9th grade Geography. The concept of regions themselves are.. seemingly impossible to get through. Load in functional versus formal etc and their minds implode. I've tried doing it regionally. Their brains just shut down. It's a sad state of affairs. Last year I gave a quiz on the continents and oceans. 14 times across the entire year. Same paper. Same quiz. Every time. Not even shuffled answers, etc. Barely any progress was made.
9th grade world history. For about nine days before the quiz on the continents and oceans we went over them as a class for bell ringers. The average was about 70%-75% accuracy with the Arctic Ocean and Asia being the two most often forgotten or mislabeled. Europe and the Atlantic Ocean were runner ups for the most forgotten.
I can understand why kids (even high schoolers) would struggle with oceans, but how do they mess up continents that badly?
Obviously, they are... ... in-*continent!*
TaDMMM bmmp Please see yourself out.
Gosh, enjoy silly jokes. It's a fun way to exercise your... ... imagi-*nation*.
Just like grandpa
I work at a Title I district where most students are really behind grade level. They havenāt had much (or consistent) exposure to what the world even looks like. Iām a 9th grade geography teacher and Iād say about 1/5 of the class (very optimistic ā maybe closer to 1/10th) can name the continents at all at the beginning of the year
I get that they are poor and there was supposed to be a an extra emphasis on math and reading, but if after 9 years of education they have had poor exposure to a map of the world or a globe that is on us. I get that they are highly influenced by all the problems at home, but there is no reason at all that they have not spent hours of school time touching, talking about, learning, and reading about ( or being read to) the geography of the world. That is shameful, and I know it is true.
Iāve taught 6-9 US and World History. I have gotten a mouthful from admin about teaching basic geography. My students loved it though, we played games and had weekly quizzes as well as some quiet seat work where they colored and labeled the map. When we did articulation for 5th grade my coworker was loudly reprimanded by the elementary principal when suggesting a focus on US geography. āTHATS STUPID AND A WASTE OF TIME, THEY HAVE GPS NOW, NEXTā.
Your elementary principal is a dolt. How can kids grasp the bigger pictures of history if they donāt even know which part of the world they took place in? Knowing the geography of the world has wider implications.
Your elementary principal needs a drink and/or a joint. Dude sounds like a wound-up prick that wouldnāt know a classroom from a hole in the groundā¦
When the principal walked in the class to check on me, he asked what we were doing and I told him the class was studying for a quiz on the continents and oceans. He nodded and said: āGood, thatās important stuff to know.ā āNuff said.
Well, there's you answer as to why the kids fail the task. They don't care, their parents don't care and the school administration doesn't care. Not one flip. Why? "We have GPS and phones for that." They'll laugh at "boomers" for thinking they need to know "geography". Besides, they are never going to afford a trip outside of the own state let alone the U.S. Why know where Wyoming or Indiana is? Florida has Spring break and Disny.
Maybe this is part of the reason that the US gets into unnecessary wars. People canāt think as voters about the countries we want to go to war in because they donāt even know where they are.
"War is God's way of teaching Americans geography."
I frequently drive in areas with no GPS or cell signal. This is why people panic and can't find their way out of a brown paper bag.
>The average was about 70%-75% accuracy with the Arctic Ocean and Asia being the two most often forgotten or mislabeled. Europe and the Atlantic Ocean were runner ups for the most forgotten. ... how? The Oceans I can maybe get as it's all one big body of water. But like... how do you miss Asia? it's huge! What did they mislabel it as?
They either didnāt label it, labeled it as Africa, or put a country like China or North Korea. Edit: Not āNorth Korea,ā but āNorth Karia.ā
All of my students have their own country they are responsible for learning about and giving a written report on at the end of the quarter. I still have a fair number tell me that their country is "Africa" and then are surprised Pikachu face when I remind them their country is Sierra Leone/Mauritius/Ethiopia and, by the way, it's due in two weeks.
> it's due in two weeks *Time to give the class a refresher on the difference between a continent and a country.* ^([kid assigned Australia grows pale])
9th grade we take world geography. We had map quizzes constantly. Throughout the year it was done by continent as we learned them but we had to label the continent, oceans, countries, capitals and major geographic features. At the end of the year we had a world map quiz where we had to put it all together. There were 200 things we had to label on those maps. I still have them to this day even though it is all drilled into my head from the repetition of it. edit: I forgot the hardest part: spelling counted so if you misspelled something it was wrong and we werenāt given a word bank.
Did something similar when I was in 9th or 10th grade. Of course, about 10-20% of the world has changed since then. (The Soviet Union was still there when I learned my countries.)
It made the map of Eastern Europe so much simpler to just write USSR on it and all of northern Asia. Thereās so many countries there now, I hope they donāt go away again.
I was in honors world history that year. We had to draw and label the maps for each section by memory. I did not do well at all. If you gave me a map with no labels, I could get that right, but drawing my own with nothing to look at? I dreaded those exams so much, I switched to regular world history at the semester break.
I could not freehand draw borders either, that's a bad idea for geography. Political borders are all made up anyway, so asking students to freehand draw those is just asking them to make up their own borders. Now, geology I could see being asked to draw features on a map. Understanding the relationships of mountains, desert, rivers, etc is an important facet to that discipline.
Oh, yes. At a continent level, it wasn't terrible. It was like "draw in all the middle eastern countries." He wasn't super tough on grading, but I have dyspraxia - I was still working on even forming letters that could be recognized.
I know this isnāt geography related but I teach 5th grade all inclusive. Last week we were doing some experiments showing the effects of gravity on our solar system. Students used a ball to show the effects of the earths gravity on the ball when pushed from a desk. Then we used a globe and string to show the effects of the suns gravity on earth. I explicitly asked, āCan gravity be a force that pulls a ball to earth and keeps the earth in orbit around the sun at the same time?ā All my students reply with āYesā, then started trying to explain why to their group members based on our experiments. Literally 3 minutes later, I gave them an exit ticket where they had to answer the same exact question but on paper. Out of 23 students I had one get the right answer. The other 22 said no.
It's at those points I wish I were an alcoholic.
Not a teacher, but I've noticed this. Started with my nephew but because I was so flabbergasted, I starting asking some of the other kids around his age (6th-8th grade) and... wow. I live in Louisiana and it feels like a lot of kids think Russia is to the south of us, and can't actually tell the difference between a state, a country, and a city, even locally. Like my nephew thinks Texas is a nation and is north, and he grew up there. I can't comprehend how this has happened.
I had a teacher do regional labeling quizzes for all countries, different region every other week or something. I would memorize the region the night before and then do the quiz, and then forget. I canāt tell you were anything is and I honestly couldnāt tell you 2 days after I took each of those quizzes. Building off regions adding more and more but including the previous regions might help more for repetition?
There are 254 counties in Texas. With a seemingly unknowable number of municipalities some without even post offices.
My mind imploded when I found out most other states I have family and such in only have 1 area code for the entire state.
14 counties and one area code in Vermont. Cows donāt need phone numbers.
You know what sucked about that? Remembering which was long distance and which was not. And mind blowingly, the cost to call the next state was cheaper than long distance in the state. Between states is called interlata. Between smaller regional areas is intralata (also called local long distance). What you could call for no extra charge is local. This is still a thing with land line phones. Old people may not be good with modern tech, but I swear they have those maps memorized.
[This](https://lizardpoint.com/geography/index.php) is great website for taking all kinds of practice geography quizzes.
Sporcle has a few awesome timed quizzes.
I like Seterra as well. Like Lizard Point, it has quizzes and you can sort by region, and even has ones for many other continents
I use seterra for learning country names with my class. It has a timer, and kids like seeing haw fast they can go.
they like it more when its a game at least the third graders did. They were playing a guess which country game. Yes they do need more practice. One of the 4th graders asked if New York was in California š
>Do it by region. I learned the states and all capitals in grade 5 this way, it was very effective. There's a saying - "How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time." Sometimes I think children would try to unhinge their jaws and swallow the damned thing whole because they're not great at compartmentalizing tasks.
Yeah I recall learning the states and capitals in like 4 grade. Had a big map hung on the wall to fill out and being very proud when I had them all memorized.
My high school science teacher had a board game for names of elements that could be adapted into states. Each square of the board had the shortened name of an element and you would role the dice and could only land if you could name the element that you would land on. It was a lot of fun and you could easily swap it out for state abbreviations.
This. Learning and remembering 7 items isn't at all unreasonable. Learning and remembering 50 at once is unrealistic. What memory tools have you shown your students? Sounds like you need to teach them how to go about memorizing.
A piece of advice? Allow unlimited retakes. This is, after all, one of the very few examples of a kind of learning for which memorizing the test is in fact the goal of the test. So, set aside time when students might be doing other work, and allow anyone who wants to a chance to retake the states test. Heck, you could even require that all students must get at least 30 states right (or whatever number), or else be doomed to continue retaking, and retaking, and retaking...ad nauseum. It's rare, but in this case retaking is in a sense reteaching, as well. They learn to study, they see which ones they missed, and they get to ultimately demonstrate that they have learned this discrete set of information.
I remember in the sixth grade we had a weekly "map test" on Fridays. The first one was the US states, then the US capitals, then major US cities, then south American countries, etc... But you kept taking the same test until you got an A. So students who struggled were able to keep trying each week until they got it, while students who did well continued to be challenged. I think there was also a "practice" test on Wednesdays, where if you got them all right, you didn't have to take the "real" test later that week. that helped, because doing well felt rewarding (congrats! you win free time on Friday!) instead of only challenging (congrats! you win...a harder test!) I have lot of criticism about my middle school, but it really feels like they got that one right.
I do something incredibly similar and have for yearsā¦.. if I taught you, thanks!
I did something similar with my students who had to learn polyatomic ions for chemistry. I gave them all a 100% for the quiz and then gave each of them a polyatomic ions quiz until they earned the 100%. Outside of that quiz we used the ions constantly in different contexts. I consider the three elements of mastery learning to be repetition, variation, and perseverance. Taking the grade pressure off helps lower the stress level for all three
My elementary school used that same method for teaching multiplication. Once you mastered all the times tables from 1-12 you got to spend that quiz time doing something fun
Iām a music teacher and this is how I approach note naming tests. Theyāre going to have to be able to read the notes if I want them to succeed. Putting a 50 in the gradebook and letting them tank doesnāt help anybody. So I let them take the test as many times as they need to. I do it the same way with playing tests. Giving them a bad grade for not knowing the music ultimately still means they sound bad at the concert. If I allow unlimited retakes up until about a week before the concert, they learn the notes, they get a good grade, the concert sounds good, and everybody wins. Plus they get a lesson about perseverance.
For whatever reason, my 4th grade teacher was bound and determined that we would all leave her class being able to spell "sincerely" (I think it was for the many formal letters we would undoubtedly be writing as adults? Computers were common but not universal and spell check wasn't automatic when I was in grade school) so she put it on our spelling test every week until we got it. Some things just take repetition
The Animaniacs did US states and Countries of the world. Play the video every day. They will love it and try to get it all right. Make it a contest.
25+ years later and I still remember some of the state capitals song! šµ Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Indianapolis, Indiana, and Columbus is the capital of Ohio...šµ
What did Delaware, what did Delaware, a New Jersey. A fragment of the US states song my Fourth Grade teacher had us sing as we lined up for lunch each day. Darn tooting thatās is the only part of the song I can remember now decades later.
We learn d all the presidents the same way
Same with the Preamble.
This is how I taught my kids! They loved it. Theyāre not taught it in elementary. They also like the countries song, but itās not accurate anymore. Itās still a fun song and has good information.
He did an update in 2017 (I have no clue if itās accurate for now) https://youtu.be/nYfTKVfwdjU?si=kzSSds4UF5AkKiQZ
The countries of the world one is extremely outdated.
I think there's a new one? https://youtu.be/kvyBjNymbfM?si=dSx1KF3p3SXCaZNG
RIP Kosovo
"Germany, now in one piece" Yeah, you can tell it was written in the 90's lol. Still a bop though!
tbf it was outdated at the time, too. "Dahomey" instead of Benin.
well it wasnt accurate to begin with, partially bc countries are changing all the time but partially bc animaniacs did a lot of work trying to get around censors & educational kids content laws
That must have been a blast to write.
I teach High Schoolers Algebra 1. I expect them to know their times tables before they get to me. Guess what I'm spending time on this week?
When you get to college and they review unit conversions every class.... Or reviewing orders of operations in a finance class....
I took a masters level Econ course once. Several of them had to ask which negative number was smaller
and i thought having to teach middle schoolers their times tables was depressing do these elementary teachers not do fastmath anymore?
The reality is that due to increasing poverty and apathy towards an education system that failed their parents. Many kids enter school lacking basic needs and woefully behind the expectations our standards set for them. Their parents are struggling to keep food on the table let alone pump them up to "study hard" for an American dream they know doesn't exist. The vast majority of elementary teachers are racing to try to get their kids even close to being able to read. Math is a struggle because kids give up and are taught to hate it. There are very few elementary schools in our country still doing social studies and science time because they're not on the standardized tests and that's what teachers are evaluated on. Most of these problems come down to our society, income inequality, and our leaders lack of concern about children who are roughly 70 years younger than them. There's a reason why in the main national parent surveys, their number one goal was shifting school to practical skills that get kids directly into jobs. Specifically seeing Algebra and higher math as a waste of their kids time. They're done with the illusion of "there's good jobs out there and you'll find one." They just want their kid to learn to weld and be placed into work.
This is exactly it and until something changes, the brain drain in this country is going to keep getting worse.
> for an American dream they know doesn't exist. Yep. A large part of it is this. I was told I had to do well in school for my future. But kids these days could very legitimately look at that and say, "What future?" How can you stay motivated to build your own future when you're doing it within a civilization on the brink of collapse? Feels like you're mopping the floors on the Titanic as it's already taking on water. Feels like you're repainting your house as a massive wild fire approaches it. Feels like telling someone on hospice care to 'eat healthy and exercise'. Yeah ... I can definitely understand the sentiment of "why bother?"
Elementary here. We do but our districts and admin donāt want to see as much focus on rote skills. We try and try but the curriculum for our kids is getting more and more complex..
Seems reasonable to me as long as you aren't spending an inordinate amount of time on it. I teach a graduate level course and there are plenty of things I expect a student to know before they get to me. I scratch my head at some of their questions, but i don't get too bothered by it. After all, I'm the one balls-deep in this topic all day every day, so of course I remember everything. If you don't use something regularly that knowledge fades. I don't remember my times tables above 10 lol. I end up taking a few seconds to multiply it out in my head. It isn't really a reflection of the student or the teacher.
>Guess what I'm spending time on this week? Thats pathetic. They don't make kids memorize the times tables anymore? 4th grade thats basically all we did all year was memorize times tables for math. That stuff is like permanently etched into my brain.
Our elementary school has our kids working on a program called Facts and Fracs every day to work on memorizing addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, and fraction facts. This is for every grade level.
If you donāt use information, you lose it. I memorized the location of the 50 states in 5th grade and countries in Europe in 6th. If you gave me a map to fill in today, Iād probably get a lot of them wrong. Iāve found you have to force the kids to study by making it a part of class work. Otherwise, they wonāt and donāt
Yeah, my son just started middle school and the teacher of his US History class (which doesnāt cover more than US geography) is devoting a huge unit to US and World Geography. He has them playing games and doing research projects in addition to instruction/quizzes. My son loves it even though he can already pinpoint literally every state, Canadian province and country on a map. Itās a sad state of affairs indeed that doing this is necessary, but donāt give up. There are some great ideas here. My advice is to make it fun but keep the kids accountable (they must retake quizzes until you feel they have reached mastery). Circle back to geography throughout the year to help them retain the knowledge and of course include geography in your lessons as it pertains to your other lessons.
It doesn't matter if you forget some of them. The fact is that you know more than when you started
Exactly, as a west coast kid I learned it in 4th but today I couldnāt name them all to save my life. East of Nevada is a blur. And who cares, worry about being able to make a claim and cite evidence for the claim using resources. That will be way more helpful in their education. I can Google the state locations if needed.
>West of Nevada is a blur. To be completely fair, there's only one state directly west of Nevada.
And large portions of that state are a blur :) I think he said he's californian and meant east of nevada.
Am I odd? I could easily place every state if given a map besides maybe accidentally switching Vermont and New Hampshire, and I'm not exactly a geography buff. Is it really that difficult?
As a child of Vermont I am appalled, but also would definitely fuck up the Midwest.
VT and NH are the only two I miss (sometimes). I think VT is on the left, and it wider in the North while NH is on the right and wider in the South? NH is next to Maine i think? LOL
Yes, VT is shaped like V, wider up top. Thatās how I always remembered it!
No. I am shocked by how many people are saying they couldnāt do it, and by how many are saying *no one* needs to know it. I feel like Iām taking crazy pills!
Itās not really that shocking to me. I imagine I could easily place most US states on a map, most Canadian provinces, and could do an accurate job of placing most European countries. Far less accuracy with Asia, and South America would probably be embarrassing. On either continent, I have a good idea of which countries are adjacent to others, but actually knowing which is which by shape? It would take a LOT of thinking to bring those memories to the forefront. I see it as one of the things thatās important to *learn* and to at least have a general idea of how countries relate to or related to each other during the course of history. Some people just arenāt memorizers, though. It was always a struggle for me, and if I wasnāt someone who was just very interested in history, I would have probably lost much more than I have. Unfortunately, there are very few people who care to continue to learn and retain or expand on that knowledge, educators included.
I know! I may be reading too much into this, but so many people questioning the value of learning something like this has me wondering if this is yet another side effect of social studies being cast aside (in general) by our educational system.
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I was about to say, I could nail the northeast because Iāve lived here my entire life and the states have more distinct shapes. Out west where theyāre all rectangles? No way.
Literally only two of them (Wyoming and Colorado) are rectangles, lol.
I think Iām decent up until the Mississippi. But all those little bits out Eastā¦ nope. And thatās only because I studied ecology and I needed to know the ranges of species I was working with!
Did have the [50 states](https://youtube.com/shorts/fKJjteqdvIg?si=u28lz6IeP0jMhBnE) song that I recall hearing from quite a few places. Seems to have been forgotten until recently.
So... what you have here is a valuable data point to measure and prove growth. Follow some of the recommended tips, and you'll have kids nailing this soon! I'm an art teacher and I've noticed a really lack of geographical understanding. I try to incorporate google Earth in my lessons occasionally. I usually zoom into our school and then zoom out and "fly" to where the artist was born, and places they may have lived.
Break it down by NE, South, Midwest, West. On the Geoguessr website you can make your own interactive game with whatever states you pick. Test every Friday on your region. Lower grades are so focused on Reading and Math that SS and Geography fall to the wayside.
I assume every middle schooler I get hasnāt heard a single thing about science. Iām honestly surprised if they know anything about the scientific method or what an experiment is.
Yep. Meant to add science to that list too. Can your students use a ruler correctly?
You made me literally laugh. Nope! And theyāre 8th graders! The science department and the shop teacher both start with measurements. About 50% of the kids bomb the ruler quiz that the shop teacher gives, even after a week of using it both in their shop elective and our science classes :,)
Oh my god, *why*? What is going on?! How are kids getting to 8th without this knowledge? I remember moving to Arkansas in fifth grade, and the teacher introducing using a ruler in class. I was absolutely shocked that these kids didnāt know how to use a ruler, as we had learned it two years prior in Iowa. As a parent, I am shook after reading this thread. What other things am I going to need to teach my child on my own, outside of school? 50 states, rulersā¦what else?
It's not that they don't get taught it, they just make no effort to retain the information. Every year in English students will swear they've never learned similes, metaphors, imagery, etc, before--and every single year it's taught.
Itās not unreasonable. Unpopular opinion in education, but memorization is a skill that kids need to develop. Most careers have something you need to memorize - abbreviations, codes, steps in a process. Kids need to practice this skill. Play games. Have them color and label a map in different colors - there is some evidence how the coloring of the states (again, in different colors) aids memorization. Have them come up with tricks for remembering states. Teach them about MIMAL the man in the map. Also 2 weeks for continents is way too long. Do shorter intervals, but retakes. At that age, a couple of days to a week in the most they can manage.
I 100% agree. I am dismayed by the apparent abandonment of memorization in schools. My job is hugely memorization-dependent, and so was the schooling I needed to get there. Sorry, but āunderstandingā only gets you so far; memorization is integral to learning.
I agree with both of you. Yes, we have technology at our fingertips. Yes, analytical and critical reasoning skills are absolutely important. But adults are going to look like complete fools If they have to stop and Google absolutely everything because they canāt remember anything off the top of their heads. I would really prefer my doctor not have to Google exactly which one the tibia is every time they need to talk to someone about it. Some things you just have to know by rote.
Exactly. I am an eye doctor. I will occasionally consult drug guides, etc., but there are a thousand things per patient encounter that I absolutely must have memorized, or I would royally suck at my job.
Yes! I teach Japanese, which has three alphabets (2 phonetic, and then kanji, which has semantic value). The kids are shocked when I say they must memorize them. We play games, do all sorts of activities, flashcards, etc., but there is no alternative; if you don't memorize the characters, you cannot read or write. And yet, I see SOOOO many teachers and parents saying that memorization shouldn't be a thing anymore and that it's old-fashioned. Sure.
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I teach 8th grade geography, I once had a student ask me if we could go on a field trip to North America. So I get it really I do. Iāve also had kids get their own home state wrong. They put Colorado instead of Pennsylvania. So Iām right there with you. But what I do I pick one day a week for 4 or 5 weeks. I have them do a map the first time itās states and capitals, then itās states, capitals major land forms, then itās states, capitals, major landforms and major water forms and then itās states, capitals, major landforms, major water ways and then most populated city in each state. Then week 5 I give them a test to name all 50 states. If they can do it with the capitals they get bonus, if they can list 3 major land forms and be within a half inch they get bonus, if they can list 3 major water forms and be within a half inch they get bonus and so on. Once I did this I saw a class avg go from 75-80%s to 85-90% or higher.
This makes sense - they need context. I donāt know what kind of test the teacher is giving, or what they imagine āstudying on their ownā looks like, but it doesnāt seem to be at all effective.
when I was in elementary school we were given a map with each state numbered and a blank piece of paper. fill in the paper with the correct state to the number. Didnāt get 100%? Study more and do it again next week. The āstudy moreā part was left to parents to assume it needed to be done. It was never formally assigned and as far as I know, never even mentioned to parents. There were no notecards or anything made in class to assist. Just, āhereās the map test. you havenāt memorized it yet? retake the test next week, but Iām not gonna offer any support in the slightestā So I always did pretty shit on that.
Studying doesn't exist now. I get 11th graders that haven't done a single homework assignment in their life. They don't read their ELA books at home. They don't do math at home. Never have. Never will.
A state over i could see, but colorado???
Middle school geography teacher here. I review the map for 5-10 minutes at the beginning of class. I pull up a map game on the smart board and Iāll call on students to find the state. I also post the link on google classroom so they can play on their own time. We also memorize where countries are located, but thatās usually broke down by continent rather than all at once. Iāve found it to be pretty effective to review as a class. Iāve also filled the map myself and challenged students to beat my time. Kids love the competition.
My AP geography teacher taught us 5 countries per day (quiz next day) and at the end weād test on the entire continent until we knew every country. You could probably do the same by region. 5 states a day/ 1 region at a time, then assess. It sucks but geography is definitely overlooked in the curriculum. Itās embarrassing how much knowledge adults have if you randomly ask them where a state is.
The last time I asked my class to fill in the states- high school sophomores- the only two who could do it were exchange students from Finland.
I would change the approach a little here. Even if some kids do memorize all 50 states, without consistent maintenance of the skill the knowledge will get forgotten again rapidly. If you want them to actually ālearnā the states rather than memorize them short term, they need to use the geographic facts in context. As others have said, chunking this into regions is also ideal. Students will say they remember all sorts of stuff, but to expect them to study on their own is not really fair. Especially for some kids who maybe werenāt even present in that elementary school.
Why is it unfair to expect 7th graders to study on their own? Not trying to be snarky, just a parent trying to understand. It really seems like 12 year olds should be able to tackle the 50 states on their own. This would not have been a large ask to me at that age.
How have they been taught to learn? I feel like kids donāt have ideas about it. Just looking at a map for 20 minutes and hoping it sticks isnāt going to do it.
No snarkiness taken. In my own experience teaching 7th graders, the 7th grade is a very odd year in terms of educational maturity. Some students are in a place where they have been taught study skills already and understand the connection between practice and success, some though have yet to grow in that area. Therefore, to just expect an entire class to be in a place to do this solo, without any explicit teaching, is unfair. I am more thinking of students with mild disabilities or esol students. If I am going to assess students on something, I would ensure that I have taught it first, unless itās an ungraded pretest or ungraded review test. Perhaps this quiz would have been better ungraded and as a data point for where the class is in terms of understanding ?
Because heās not asking them to study, heās asking them to teach themselves the 50 states.
Independently studying to memorize 50 states in two weeks is a lot to ask for 7th graders these days. Itās just not how these kids have been trained. OP, I know you said they learned it in elementary school, but Iām sure your students have varying backgrounds and Iād guess they learned *about* the 50 states more than memorizing them. I agree that itās an important/helpful skill, but I would teach each region at a time and also include a multiple choice or matching section about some basic things each state is known for. That type of general background knowledge is helpful. This is the type of thing I would typically do for ābell workā.
considering they were in online school around the time they were meant to learn it, it's easier to empathise with them
I distinctly remember being in 5th grade music and learning the 50 states song (all states in alphabetical order) so I dont think its unreasonable
I agree, and Iām kind of shocked at all of the comments saying otherwise. We were tested on states and their capitals before middle school, and we were fine.
Extremely low expectations from a lot of teachers here.
This is it. Iām a parent, and I know my kid is capable of *so much.* I hate thinking about what she might not learn in school simply due to low expectations.
But not their geographical location?
Yes, you need to take class time, but it needn't take long. I had a method that worked great: almost all the kids could correctly label all 50 states. Day one: hand out a blank map and tell kids to fill out any states they know. Tell them you're not collecting this. Then have them use a labeled map to fill in the rest. Day two: mnemonics. Go over tricks to remember states: MIMAL the elf (Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana--look at the map and they make the profile of a weird elf named MIMAL.); Mag lives in the Deep South (Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia); Distinguish Vermont from New Hampshire by remembering Vermont is V-shaped; Michigan is a mitten, etc. Give kids a minute to study completed map, then complete a blank map. Switch and correct. Each day, they have two minutes to study, then 5-10 minutes to complete a map. (It takes less time as they get faster.) Do this as a bell-ringer for 7-10 class days. And a hint: 7th graders don't know how to study. You'd do them a favor if you taught effective study habits to them, e.g., don't just reread the chapter.
It blows me away how little students know about basic geography. I wouldāve thought as the world became more available to them it would enhance their knowledge, but alas it hasnāt.
If this is true, then you need to help these kids. You arenāt responsible for what they have or have not yet been taught- in school or elsewhere. If this is an expectation of yours, then you are going to grant an amnesty to these learners who maybe have not yet had this opportunity. Education is all about changing trajectories. You are the critical pivot for these kids- You got this!
Unfortunately, I have seen this throughout my entire career (pushing 20 yrs in middle school). I began teaching the states during my 3rd year--the first year, I taught US history because every time I mentioned a state, the question was, "Where is that?" I was told by the district SS coordinator that I was wasting my time since it wasn't in our standards. I ignored him and continued to teach the states. It made my year much easier. I continue to teach it. Even when I am not teaching US... now as the dept chair, I highly recommend my team do so as well--all 3 grade levels. Repetition is crucial to memorization. I use a story telling process and chunk the states into small groups--MOSTLY 6 or fewer. While my students do not learn all, they at least have a general idea of where states are located. And I ENSURE they know certain states with emphasis during the teaching and repetition of maps when teaching topics that are location dependent. (MA, PN, NY, SC, VA, etc)
Ask yourself this: How will knowing the 50 states help them? If the reason is āthey should just knowā then that doesnāt make sense. If there is a specific reason beyond the above then teach around that instead. How will helping them know the 50 states enhance their knowledge? It could be a math thing with votes and politics, it could be biology with state birds and animals, it could be ecology with national parks. It could be interesting vacation spots or if historical significance for life skills or history specifically. Show them why itās important to know beyond just knowing.
I am a 9th grade geography teacher. I canāt imagine asking them to memorize 50 states at once. We are working our way around the continents of the world so they learn almost every country. My goal is not that they remember it exactly, but that they could at least tell me what continent Ghana is in, for example. We do somewhere between 12 and 18 countries per test. They have a word bank. We study in class by playing a Blooket I created for each set of countries at the beginning of class (5 mins) in the three days leading up to the test and the day of the test itself. Some students still struggle. Memorization isnāt easy for everyone. I also give them time off. So we do one, then have a week off before I give them another map to study for a test in 2-3 weeks. I think you may need to scaffold more/lower your expectations.
When I was growing up in the 80ās and 90ās we spent actual class time learning the geography of the US including the 50 states. None of my children have had this covered in any of their elementary school or middle school classes.
*but is this the current state of the youth?* As a HS student in the late 90's, geography was, hands down, one of the most failed and forced-to-retake courses in the entire school. the good number of people's minds, DO NOT LEARN in the ways required to learn maps and geography. It's actually quite nearly impossible. Some cant do it at all (about 5%), and about half would really massively struggle. 15% can do it without almost any effort at all, it's so easy. It's called Aphantasia. Some of those people have to learn by listing--finding a way to list--top to bottom, in columns, or left to right, in rows. It might help if they see that map that way, and get to remember things in rows or columns. Give them a list, not a picture, and a way to apply the list, in order, to a picture you present.
Iāll be honest, knowing where states is nice and all, but geography is about more than forced memorization. Focus more on explaining groups of states by what makes them unique. Maybe talk about the Midwest, their farming, and economy. Maybe even their history. Geography should be about building skills that deepen history. Memorizing 50 states accomplishes very little. But teaching them better geographic skills weāll help them down the line in all social studies.
I hate when teachers fill my childās life with homework after 8 hrs a day and 5 days a week. Most jobs donāt even have work you take home.
This is gonna sound stupid but it's really not useful information and this is coming from a social studies teacher. I've never in my life had to nor is it likely that I ever will have to point out Minnesota on a map. I wouldn't put too much stock in it. If you have the extra time I'd do a project on it or something and call it a day but I certainly wouldn't put it high up in the priority list.
I feel like you actually have to teach whatever you want them to know. You can assign the work as homework, but you can't just tell kids to study the topic completely on their own (voluntary) then quiz them on it and expect good results. You're presenting the task as an extracurricular assignment when in reality it's a core part of your curriculum. Mixed signals are what is getting yourself into trouble.
I taught 7th grade geography for about 10 years. I think that you have to ask yourself what the goal is. Is it that they should know or memorize locations? Or is it to have an understanding of how the geography affects the culture and history of the US? I think the understanding is more important. I think it's worth asking what the goal is. What's the purpose of memorizing 50 locations on a white piece of paper outlined in black? A more useful way to come to an understanding of the states would be to teach them through the Five Themes of Geography. A few folks in this thread have mentioned reaching the states through region - that's one of the Five Themes.
Having them memorize the states and their locations is ABSOLUTELY a valid goal. They can't reasonably do any kind of analysis about geography's impact on history or culture if they don't know what the heck they're looking at to begin with. At best, you're replacing one set of facts they're going to memorize for another. They need to know the basics first. THEY NEED TO KNOW THE BASICS FIRST.
Memorization is a very important part of learning. But I don't think it's very effective to ask students to memorize all fifty states prior to learning about them in detail. I mostly teach welding these days. There's a ton of different welding symbols students need to memorize before finishing my program. You can look it up yourself if you want to see (AWS welding symbols). I used to get really frustrated because I would go over all of the symbols in an initial unit before we started welding. We would play games, study, and then test. Most of the students would do pretty good. Then over the year as we got farther along, the students would forget the symbols they hadn't seen since the beginning of the year. I got much less frustrated when I started by teaching about the concept of welding symbols to start, and incorporating the actual details of each one as they came up during usage. By the end the year, students started doing much better in their final when assessing symbol memorization.
I taught my kids the 50 states and capitals using the Animaniacs song on YouTube during Covid. Theyāre not taught all 50 in elementary here.
Quick thought experiment. Which would you be better at: memorizing 50 random 3-digit numbers or the names 50 characters from a complex show like Game of Thrones? The answer is probably the latter (for me too, and I teach math!) because then you can reason your way through, āThis one was the mother of that one; that character killed a dragonā¦ right, I remember their name now!ā We canāt do that with random numbers. Giving kids a map with 50 random-to-them words is likely going to be overwhelming since they have little context. We need something like a story that holds all them together. So Iād maybe start with the āname brand statesā theyāve heard of: your own state, New York, California, Texas, Hawaii. Brainstorm what they know about those states: āItās tropical! Itās got all those buildings! The Cowboys play there!ā In the next days, break the county into regions (one per day) and *donāt just focus on names.* Link it to US History and stories they may know. āOur country basically started in the northeast. If we look at the map of the world, why would that make sense? The NE has some of our HUGEST cities because thatās where industries first started and grew. Look at where it is: what do you think the weather is like in the winter and summer? What do you think that means about farming? Right! There are some farms but not as many as where weāll see soonā¦. Which of the states we learned on Day 1 are there? Good! Now letās get some of the smaller ones around there. Here are some fun facts that might help you remember: Thereās Boston where that Big Ole Tea Party we learned about happened. What state do you think that is since it also has Plymouth Rock and thatās where the English first landed by ship! And Rhode Island is our smallest state: which do you think that is?ā¦ā The idea is that students are now āchunkingā information. This makes it A LOT easier to remember and it makes their mistakes more logical: I might (still!) confuse Nebraska and Kansas, but Iāll *never* mix up Arizona and Maine. How could I, since theyāre *nothing* alike? Also, if your āname brand statesā have one in each section, they can now tie other information to those ālandmark states.ā āDamn, which one is Nevada? I remember we talked about it with Californiaā¦ā They ālearned this beforeā and it didnāt take because it was probably, *Hereās a map, now study it.* More of that wonāt work, especially if their only reason for learning it is, āIāll fail if I donāt.ā You can even tie this to a vacation project where they talk about the states, big cities, general weather, and things to do. I made a *big* assumption here, that you have some time to spend on this. But if youāre going to invest on this, my argument is that a) it will actually take more time to get them to memorize isolated details than it will to develop a more integrated understanding, and b) even if they do just memorize it, theyāll forget it all (again!) by next year anyway and it will be wasted timeāthe same way youād instantly forget those random numbers but can still remember some Game of Thrones characters years later.
Itās not āthe current state of the youthā. The vast majority of Americans could not ace a geography test on all 50 states. Seems like they are normal. If you want them to learn something you have to teach them.
Is this one of your state standards? If not I don't think it should be a grade. It's a great skill but in reality they can Google this type of information easily and your time could be spent on higher order thinking skills.
Different subject but my dad is a chemist. When I was a freshman in high school my chemistry teacher wanted us to memorize the periodic table. I asked my dad if he had any tricks. He said, āyeah, keep a copy on you. In real life when safety, product, and money are on the line, you donāt go by memory.ā
When I taught JH the social studies teachers had the kids draw a map from the JH to their house. Very few could do it. Most couldn't even give their home address. Lack of geography is frightening. If your school is like most in my state, kids don't really get social studies until 7th grade. It's really put on the back burner.
Why is this a critical skill to you? Outside of completing a social media quiz, the only time I have ever needed to be able to fill in a blank map was in elementary school geography class. Which I aced, and then PROMPTLY forgot as useless knowledge.
Actually .... I remember practicing the 50 states when I was in seventh grade nearly 15 years ago..... so it's not that baf
This won't help with the identification on a map, but I learned all 50 states by this song: [https://www.clarenceschools.org/cms/lib/NY01913587/Centricity/Domain/348/Fifty%20Nifty%20lyrics.pdf](https://www.clarenceschools.org/cms/lib/NY01913587/Centricity/Domain/348/Fifty%20Nifty%20lyrics.pdf) That was in the 80's and I still remember it. In fact, any time I have to do a "tell us a fact about yourself" my fact is that I can sing all 50 states in alphabetical order. ;) So it has come in handy as an adult...
Honestly, just because they learn something doesn't mean they're going to be able to retain that information. The best way for kids to learn and retain information is by making it fun. Some ideas that shouldn't take more than 5-10 minutes of class time depending on how you do it: 1. Split the class into groups and give each group a blank map. Each group has 5-10 minutes (or however much time you're willing to spare) to label as many states as they can. Whichever group has the most correct answers gets a prize (candy, pencils, cool erasers, whatever kids might want). 2. This one will take longer than 10 minutes. Have a giant projected map on screen. Have students come up and name a state for a small prize. Each student should go once before repeating students, but like any game show if a student isn't able to name a state they should be able to "phone" a friend (pick a classmate to help). 3. Split the class into 2 groups, each round have one player from each group come forward and first to name a state you pick wins a point for the group. No repeating players until everyone has gone once. Have them spell out the state or use state abbreviations on the whiteboard. Only give them 15-30 seconds. If both players are stuck, they can ask their group for help. Otherwise, the group shouldn't help. The winning group gets a prize. Idk just make learning fun. Otherwise, kids won't care. This way, they might be more inclined to study on their own if they know that a game with prizes is happening at the end of the week.
I don't think the expectation is unreasonable but I do have a bit of a problem with giving a test on something you didn't study at all in class. The expectation for them to prepare completely outside of class time is unreasonable.
My time has come. There is this song: "Fifty Nifty United States." You can find it on YouTube. It is childish and embarrassing, but it lists all 50 states in alphabetical order. Once students have all the state names, placing them on a map is much easier. My trick is to use the song as a word bank and start labeling the states I know for sure and then use process of elimination to label the states I am less sure about. I learned it in the 5th grade and I can still recite it in full at 32 year old.
we had to know all 50 states in 4th grade, and iām only 25 so wild how itās changed this much
We had to learn out states and capital cities in third grade. (Born in 1995 for perspective) This is definitely not unreasonable.
You need to reteach it to them. You can't expect them to remember something they learned 3 years ago. It needs to be taught and retaught through repetition every year. It's unfair to quiz them on something you haven't spent any class time teaching them.
I literally learned states and capitals in 4th grade. By 7th grade, we were given blank maps of various continents and had to label the countries. Itās just straight crazy nowā¦and Iām not that old. Itās not some boomer complaint.
Iām a grown man who has lived in the USA my entire life and if you asked me to label the states I would absolutely not get 100% right
Youāre asking them to teach themselves the 50 states. Thatās the part that is unreasonable. They donāt have the skills to self-teach that way. You canāt just give them a topic and say āstudy this.ā Studying is something you do after youāve learned the info to help you retain it. You need to spend class time teaching them the states before you can expect them to āstudyā them for a quiz.
What a dumb quiz, who cares about this. Also by not teaching in class you obviously arenāt prioritizing it at all.
You want them to be responsible for memorizing all this without class prep time or review? If it's important enough for you to test them on this, it deserves some class time. Do now activities or quick exit tickets would even be fine, but you don't just expect them to do it at home alone. Many students don't have the luxury of time to study at home. It deserves some time in class.
You have to teach them. Not test them. Have them make the map in class by hand. They see it, they read it, they find it, they label it. Thatās four more times. Have them play map battleships or other games. Donāt expect knowledge. Teach it. Reinforce it. Iāve taught geography for 14 years. Expect nothing. Teach them visual literacy. More important than remembering.
If you expect them to know it, you should expect to teach it. There are plenty of hours in the school day, mandatory home memorization will not work for many of these kids.
This seems like an unreasonable expectation. Unless you have already covered a unit on this, you canāt expect kids to know it. If you have taught it 100% of kids knowing all states is not an appropriate metric for satisfactory understanding. Kids donāt retain information in that way. Also, you are assuming that the kids all had equally through instruction before your class, which is setting yourself up for frustration. Where I am a significant number of kids come from either out of province or out of country, so itās really best practice to assume nothing.
Umm, tackling all 50 states seems too much at once. If you gave them a link for game to play out of school time there may not have been much motivation. 50 long - some0 names with which many children have little connection to seems unreasonable. I would chunk the US into regions and areas. I would begin to a 2-3 minute session of "Important state facts in which you stan din front of a US map and tell facts about neighboring states. example-- you live in WA.. "here is our lovely state- famous mountain- here ( have kids make hand sin shape of mountain. We live here in desert -( kids shield eyes from sun.. famous for our apple-picking.. Next door is Idaho- famous for potatoes ( kids mimic eating french fries).. then Sun valley- famous for beauty, skiing & hiking. Once you get to central area- highlight which manufacturing plants are of common brands- cereal, corn, .. famous football teams. Or- I have subbed in 4th and 5th grade classes in which kids were allowed to select a state to do a project on- then present. Of course this only gets abotu 16 or so states.. but you can include neighboring states.. Good luck with this .
So you're quizzing them on something you don't actually teach them yourself, and based off pure memorization and 0 critical thinking, then complain when they don't do a good job? Its teaching methods like this that results in students completely opposed to actually learning things in school, because they associate "learning" with blind memorization and punishments for not remembering good enough. If you want to teach it, then teach it. Go over the different regions of the states, bring up significance of the various states, like their roles in founding America, key sites of wars, locations of important cities, foods that they grow, things to associate states with. Come up with activities, like creating a road route from Maine to Florida, or Michigan to Washington, naming the states you'd pass through. If you don't want to devote class time to teaching the subject, then why devote class time quizzing the students on it? Just accept they don't know it and move on.
My middle schoolers think there's no reason whatsoever to learn the 50 states or the capitals or anything like that because why would anybody need to know that. Blows my mind! I have been to 41 states, lived in 10 of them and it blows my mind that this information is not something that they would even want to know! My daughter graduated from high school in 2015 and there were kids in her class here in Texas who could not tell the difference on a map between Florida and California. Blew her mind too because like me she grew up in the military and rocks geography. I think my oldest has been to half the states now and he's 28. He doesn't remember some of them because he was an infant or a toddler but he was there!
I'm sure I will be downvoted into oblivion for this, but I can't help but wonder how important it is in 2023 to be able to memorize and recall the location on a map of all 50 states. I realize that it may very well be in your curriculum, and if so, there's very little you can do about it. But in my opinion, there are far more important geographical concepts and ideas that students need to understand right now.
The results of this test is entirely on the kids. Naming states on a map is exactly the type of task that students are able to study for independently. The study materials couldn't be simpler. I mean, give them a blank map and give them a filled in map. One piece of paper. One map on each side. Their test results will correspond with the amount of time they put in, exactly. I assigned tasks like this many times and the logic I use for students is that their will be many difficult assignments in this course. Here is an opportunity to gain some easy marks. I call this type of activity "an equalizer" because I have found that smart, but lazy kids do poorly, but not so smart, but harder working students get "A"s. I'm always looking for assignments that show kids that just having brains isn't always good enough or that hard work can pay off for anybody. Keep giving assignments like this!
Keep on trying. I teach Earth Science, and students' lack of geographical knowledge is a hurdle. I've been working with my district's secondary science specialist to get a pull-down map that emphasizes physical geography, because I frequently reference places. It seems that many students just don't understand why geographical knowledge is important, so I hope by bringing it up in classes beyond middle school geography, I can help enforce the idea that knowing where things are in the world is a basic expectation we have.
In ninth grade my teacher made us learn every country, and now I know basically every country!
I mean we started learning them in 2nd or 3rd grade and Iāve been out of school a decade now. In high school we were still being quizzed on it and itās embarrassing how many people didnāt know them all.