The cyclone that hit southeast Asia this past weekend was truly a tragedy.  But it does provide us both a teaching moment and a learning concern.

Every year, we hear how poorly U.S. students perform when it comes to geography.  Many are lucky to find Canada on the map, forget southeast Asia.  We tell ourselves geography isn’t so important any more.  Our kids have more important things to do than to study maps and memorize capital cities.

So when an event like the cyclone hits, and it dominates the news, it provides us a real teaching moment.  It lets us bring out the maps and find the affected country.  It lets students study the region, and learn about its geography, its history, and its government.  It allows us to use breaking news as a hook for learning.

But that’s where we start getting into trouble here.  Pick up most major newspapers — including The Washington Post and USA Today (both of which are delivered to the Eduhouse) — and we read about the cyclone that hit Burma.  Listen to TV news or read some of the coverage on the Internet, and the people of Myanmar were hit by a cyclone Saturday.  It’s enough to confuse even the most well-intentioned of student.

We don’t expect all media outlets to use the same style guidelines.  Back in the 1980s, there was massive disagreement on the spelling of the dictator of Libya.  Just a few years ago, we had multiple spellings for bin Laden’s first name.  And let’s not even touch those classroom globes that still have Czechoslovakia printed on them.

Social studies and geography teachers, help me out here.  How do we teach children the nations of the world if we can’t even agree on the names on their “Welcome to …” signs?