Learning stuff whilst traveling
By maximax8
@maximax8 (31042)
United Kingdom
August 31, 2012 9:51am CST
Niall is still in Nepal and he has been learning more about that beautiful little country. He read that 49 per cent of people in Nepal are unable to read or write. It made him feel shocked and loved the fact that he is a well educated Irish person. He met a guy that earns a 100 dollars a month and he earns that per hour when he is developing a website.
He was talking to an American backpacker and he said didn't Niall know that 14 per cent of American people are unable to read or write. I find that hard to understand since America is a developed country with good schools. I wonder how an American child can go through education in America without knowing how to read or write.
What do you think?
Which things have you learned on your travels?
5 responses
@elsino91 (440)
• Poland
31 Aug 12
Whenever I travel to places, other countries around the world, I make sure to learn about the country's culture. What I mean is how its citizens live and the things that make them citizens of that country and not another. I like to learn how to live like a normal person in those countries and not a tourist which is why I am very interested in customs and even try to learn as much of the language as I can a little bit before my journey and while I am staying there.
@41CombedaleRoad (5966)
• Greece
1 Sep 12
Travel broadens the mind if one travels with your attitude. Being a tourist does not give a very realistic picture unless you move out of the tourist areas. I visited Greece many times but it was not until I moved here that I saw the bigger picture.
What a great idea to learn a bit of the language before you visit a country. People love it when others take such a interest in their country that they bother to do that. Happy travels.
@makingpots (11915)
• United States
1 Sep 12
Well, simply put; not at all American schools are good schools. Numerous reasons for this!
While traveling I like to learn about things that make the region unique. I seek out museums about the products that have originated from the area, or about reasons for development in the area. For example, in my country, towns that were railroad hubs often have a reach history. It is interesting to me to see the ingenuity of the people as other forms of transportation eliminated the need for such railroad hubs. Some successfully found ways to keep people coming to their area, others enjoyed becoming a quieter area.
I also enjoy trying physically activities that are popular in particular regions. Skying, mountain biking, etc.
@ElicBxn (64172)
• United States
31 Aug 12
Its very simply why there is such high illiteracy in the U.S., government schools.
Oh, once they were good, but for a while it was really bad.
There ways a time when teachers would pass a student on just to get them out of their classes, it didn't matter if they could do the work. If they just showed up for class, that was enough.
Now they have to pass tests, but what are they really learning? How to pass the test actually...
@GreenMoo (11833)
•
31 Aug 12
I hadn't known those literacy statistics before, so I just looked them up. It does depend how you define 'literate' but the figures I found were quite shocking.
I used to work with adults teaching literacy skills, and it never failed to surprise me how people had managed to get through so many years of schooling without ever learning to read. It made me wondered how they managed to cope. I was also very surprised at the ingenious ways that illiterate people had developed to disguise their lack of reading skills.
@bhanusb (5709)
• India
31 Aug 12
Hi Maxine, Nepal is a poor country. Tourism is the main income of that country. Many people of that country depend on foreigners. There are many remote places in Nepal where no school or any educational institute. Parents are not interested to send their children to send school,rater they want their children should earn money to support the family. These are the reasons of Nepal's low literacy rate. On the other hand US is one of the richest countries of the world. But the black people of that country are comparatively poor. They don't get education.
