An article of faith among Canadians is that not only do we know more about our country than Americans know about theirs, but we know more about the US than Americans do, as well. This may or may not be true on balance, but I will let sleeping sacred cows lie. For those who wish to get their self-congratulatory freak on though, behold:
MSNBC’s Short-form US Citizenship Exam
I will admit that I did not get perfect – stupid question 19. In my defense, if I were actually applying for US citizenship, I feel that I would probably have known what the form was called.
Photo Credit: Ctd_2005
meandering wildly 
Waking sleeping sacred cows…because I can.
I have to say, in all honesty (and I DO hate to admit this), I think the notion that we Canadians know more about American history than Americans is a complete sham. Having married an American I KNOW he knows more about his country’s history than I do. And defintely more than the vast majority of my Canadian friends. Additionally, I have many many intelligent American friends who I wouldn’t hesitate to make the same claim for.
Interestingly, the American educational system also empahsizes history of your state as extremely important. (An empahsis that sense based on their political system of organization) And I can say with about 90 percent certainty that the majority of American friends I have can not only beat the majority Canadians at knowledge of America the nation…but they will completely trump them on knowledge of history of their individual state vs. Canadians knowledge of their individual provinces.
Then again, I may just have very intelligent friends…. but I think that can be said for both sides of the border.
How I feel about literacy when it comes to other things, like current political situations, is a completely different issue and does not need to be discussed at this moment. Grin
One of Josh’s earliest statments from when we started dating that really hit me was that his vague impression was that most Canadians had a “better than thou” attitude when it came to America and Americans. Regardless of if that is justified, it does NOTHING to facilitate bettering the world we all live in together.
Sorry for getting on a soap box on your journal…it’s just after living here, and struggling through a crosscultural marriage, you start to see little things like Canadians toting themselves as “smarter than the average american” as pointless and irritating when the very same action seemed nothing but humourous only a few years before.
Allie