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South Africans? U.S. Americans? Miss South Carolina Makes Mistake, Exposes Secret of American Education System

by Nicholas Katers

By now, you have seen the hot “buzz? video of August 27th. Miss South Carolina gets a question, A.C. Slater holds the microphone and tries not to laugh and the young lady proceeds to mess up about as bad as you possibly can. She refers to Americans as “U.S. Americans? and mixes up South America and South Africa. At least I think she does, I have no idea what she is talking about.

It is appropriate that she got a question stating that most American students cannot identify the United States on a map. I think this irony is self evident but Miss South Carolina may have accidentally done a major service to public education. I just wish this happened as the YouTube debates took place among the Democrats. A user could have just played this clip and let the Democrats speak to public education issues.

I hate to pile on people and she clearly was flustered and rehearsed something that she was unfamiliar with. I do think that the tone of the press coverage was more “take a look at this…? with a smirk than actual news which is only designed to increase the snark factor that the public seems to enjoy. In the end, her inability to put together a cohesive argument and properly identify people may have given public education proponents enough material to spring back to the fore.


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