For my first blog post ever, I should probably explain the title "land bridge to Africa." As I sort of mentioned, I usually find myself laughing as I correct tests and encounter some very creative test answers. In my very short teaching career, one answer ranks above all the rest. Let me give it context: I teach 7th grade geography at King's Junior High school and we cover the ENTIRE world in a semester. During my student teaching last year, I took over the classroom just in time to teach about Latin America. Latin America is, of course, a land bridge that connects North America and South America. Well apparently that was lost on one student because on their multiple choice test, they chose that Latin America was a land bridge that connected North America and AFRICA! This was funny for so many reasons:
Reason number one: like most students probably realized, we had not yet studied Africa so it was pretty likely that Africa would not be the answer. I included Africa in the list of answers because I needed a 4th option and I was pretty darn sure NO ONE WOULD PICK IT. i was wrong.
Reason number two: the unit we had just finished and the test we were taking was labeled (literally written on the top of the test, like 5 inches above the question) "North and South America."
Reason number three: from this students desk, they could probably see 10 maps...and if they looked at those maps, they would notice the absence of a vast piece of land stretching over the Atlantic ocean connecting North America and Africa.
In this moment, really good teachers might wonder what they'd done wrong that a student had picked the most wrong answer. I didn't worry about that because I was too busy laughing.
so that is why this blog is called "land bridge to Africa."
