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German here - It's my understanding that in the US, classes rotate through rooms assigned to subjects (e.g. you go to your next class to the geography room). In

German here - It's my understanding that in the US, classes rotate through rooms assigned to subjects (e.g. you go to your next class to the geography room). In Germany, subjects rotate through classes (e.g. 9th grade would have an assigned room, and the geography teacher would show up for the next lesson). So personally, I don't think I ever saw a geography teacher carry around a globe, nor talk about projections. I feel like I learned about it reading XKCD 10 years later.

MichaelCollins 4y ago
> It's my understanding that in the US, classes rotate through rooms assigned to subjects (e.g. you go to your next class to the geography room). This is true after 4th grade, but 1st through 4th usually have kids learning every regular subject from a single teacher in a single classroom. Of course there are many states and even more school districts, and it's very possible that some of them do it differently.
- michaelgrafl 4y ago
  Austrian here. We too have a single teacher from first to forth class, with the exception of religion and sometimes PE. But I don't think that's the age to learn about map projections. My oldest child just finished first grade though, so I'll keep an eye open.
- ThePadawan 4y ago
  Ah yes, same here. At that age, though, we didn't have Geography, we simply had what I will call Science Class (for the Germans: This was Bavaria, so it's hilariously called "Heimat- und Sachunterricht" now), and I have no recollection what that covered. I think it was closer to how bees pollinate plants. Looking at the syllabus for my state now (https://www.lehrplanplus.bayern.de/fachlehrplan/grundschule/4/hsu https://www.lehrplanplus.bayern.de/fachlehrplan/grundschule/...), the most advanced world map-related topic in elementary school is something like Students - learn how to read scale on a map - understand where their home is on a map and in which state and country and on which continent it is. Using their crappy search function, I don't get any results for map projections, Mercator, etc. at all, even further down the road. (Note: I'm aware that Bavaria is known for being very centered on itself. This might be a large cause for this.)
bombcar 4y ago
Grade school didn’t rotate for me, high school the kids moved classes. Somewhere in there we learned about projections (many were the “split globe” ones).
thayne 4y ago
Elementary school (usually up through 5th grade) in the US usually has one classroom and one teacher for most subjects. All of my elementary school classrooms had at least one globe.

MichaelCollins 4y ago

> It's my understanding that in the US, classes rotate through rooms assigned to subjects (e.g. you go to your next class to the geography room). This is true after 4th grade, but 1st through 4th usually have kids learning every regular subject from a single teacher in a single classroom. Of course there are many states and even more school districts, and it's very possible that some of them do it differently.

michaelgrafl 4y ago
Austrian here. We too have a single teacher from first to forth class, with the exception of religion and sometimes PE. But I don't think that's the age to learn about map projections. My oldest child just finished first grade though, so I'll keep an eye open.
ThePadawan 4y ago
Ah yes, same here. At that age, though, we didn't have Geography, we simply had what I will call Science Class (for the Germans: This was Bavaria, so it's hilariously called "Heimat- und Sachunterricht" now), and I have no recollection what that covered. I think it was closer to how bees pollinate plants. Looking at the syllabus for my state now (https://www.lehrplanplus.bayern.de/fachlehrplan/grundschule/4/hsu https://www.lehrplanplus.bayern.de/fachlehrplan/grundschule/...), the most advanced world map-related topic in elementary school is something like Students - learn how to read scale on a map - understand where their home is on a map and in which state and country and on which continent it is. Using their crappy search function, I don't get any results for map projections, Mercator, etc. at all, even further down the road. (Note: I'm aware that Bavaria is known for being very centered on itself. This might be a large cause for this.)

bombcar 4y ago

Grade school didn’t rotate for me, high school the kids moved classes. Somewhere in there we learned about projections (many were the “split globe” ones).

thayne 4y ago

Elementary school (usually up through 5th grade) in the US usually has one classroom and one teacher for most subjects. All of my elementary school classrooms had at least one globe.