I think part of it is that the U.S. is so big geographically it's less important that we learn about a lot of things in the subject than other people. It's not like we can have 8 foreign nations within a couple hundred miles like in Europe.
An even bigger reason I think it gets skipped over a lot is because how quickly information can be obtained now when one wants it. Geography in the sense of knowing locations doesn't take any skill to figure out beyond just the immediate knowledge of where something is. One can now go on the Internet and find the location and name of almost anything within seconds thus making memorizing it less important. Other subjects that need more skill to figure out that can't be done with. Somebody can't just solve a complex mathematical problem by doing a quick search on the Internet. They have to know how to do it themselves and the processes involved in it.
If geography is important for more than just that it's more for the social and political reasons than the actual area something is at, but then again that involves a lot more than just geography. That's more the social sciences that are important with the geography as a part of it.
All that's not to say that geography is totally unimportant. I still think it's lazy and embarrassing to be as ignorant as some people out there are.
An even bigger reason I think it gets skipped over a lot is because how quickly information can be obtained now when one wants it. Geography in the sense of knowing locations doesn't take any skill to figure out beyond just the immediate knowledge of where something is. One can now go on the Internet and find the location and name of almost anything within seconds thus making memorizing it less important. Other subjects that need more skill to figure out that can't be done with. Somebody can't just solve a complex mathematical problem by doing a quick search on the Internet. They have to know how to do it themselves and the processes involved in it.
If geography is important for more than just that it's more for the social and political reasons than the actual area something is at, but then again that involves a lot more than just geography. That's more the social sciences that are important with the geography as a part of it.
All that's not to say that geography is totally unimportant. I still think it's lazy and embarrassing to be as ignorant as some people out there are.
