Education in the desert, part two

Over the past few months I've learned a lot -- unfortunately much of what I've learned is a sort of 'negative knowledge'. By that I mean that I've gained knowledge about what people don't know. I'm going to share (don't you love that word?) some of this with you now, but be warned -- it's a sad story. So if you're already feeling a little blue about the future of the world, save this one for a brighter day.

Even though I don't teach literature, geography, history, or really much of anything else that folks consider useful, references to these fundamentals crop up every so often in my classes. Partly because I'm a generalist to the point of suffering from a serious attention-span problem, partly because there's just no getting away from stuff about the world we live in. Here's some of the negative knowledge I've acquired from my students since teaching in the UAE:

1. None has ever heard of George Orwell. Although a few of them remember reading Animal Farm, they didn't seem to make the connection between Snowball/Napoleon and Lenin/Stalin. Some of them aren't quite sure who Lenin and Stalin actually are.

2. One of them does not have any English language books in his home.

3. The majority of them do not know where the Abu Dhabi Cultural Foundation is. In fact some are a little iffy on the whole geography of Abu Dhabi island.

4. All of them think that Hawai'i is either in the Indian Ocean or in South America.

5. No one has heard of the Holocaust. I mean the event, not the vocabulary word.

6. About 3% are familiar with Charles Dickens. One third of those can actually name a book by him.

7. Carl Sagan and Isaac Asimov are unfamiliar names, despite the fact that all of the students are studying science.

8. My cleverest student has not heard of St. Petersburg/Leningrad. Or any city in Russia other than Moscow.

9. A few of them haven't quite wrapped their heads around the fact that I can find their submitted work on at least ten different internet sites.

10. A majority really does believe that dogs eat feces on a regular basis. Now I ask you, have you EVER seen a dog eating poo? If so, and if this is a regular occurrence where you live, please do drop me a line.