ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, April 14, 1997 TAG: 9704140098
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-5 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: FAIRFAX
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS|
Her classmates made it clear they didn't buy the map-maker's excuse.
It's a good thing Erin Cain had studied for her quiz on Africa before she found herself with a few idle minutes before it began.
The map the sophomore at James Madison High School looked at in her day planner, which was supposed to be there as a study guide, was all wrong.
It listed Korea, East Pakistan and Rhodesia, all unfamiliar names to Erin because they'd all changed, some as long as 50 years ago.
``It's a good thing I hadn't been studying from that map all along,'' said Erin, 15. ``I mean, it's kind of ridiculous to have that many errors on something that goes to so many people and that so many people use.''
Erin mentioned the mistakes to her world studies classmates, and they found nearly a dozen misidentified countries within about 10 minutes.
Korea split into North Korea and South Korea in 1945. East Pakistan became Bangladesh in 1971. And Rhodesia won its independence and became Zimbabwe in 1980, two years before Erin was born.
The students told their teacher and decided to write a letter of complaint to the handbook's publisher, Haan Custom Datebooks in Indiana.
Scott Haan, project manager at the company, said the map had appeared in thousands of planners used at several schools across the country over the past four years, but company officials had never before been told it was wrong.
``We want to congratulate the students on being observant enough to catch the errors and thank them for pointing them out to us,'' said Haan, who said the company destroyed 30,000 copies of the map planned for use in the fall.
Haan blamed the errors on an outdated atlas used to produce the study guides. But the students said some updates had been made.
``I mean, they got Germany right, but they had stuff from 20 years ago wrong,'' said David Brodsky, 16. ``A lot of the errors were just common-sense stuff.''
Teacher Mark Dozier said he couldn't have planned a better lesson.
``I'm always looking for ways to make geography interesting and more fun. This just kind of fell from the sky,'' he said.
LENGTH: Short : 48 linesby CNB