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The New Summit book is loaded with smarts.
The great Dietmar spotted this wonderful instrument of learning in Germany and kindly forwarded it to me.
According to Dietmar’s own count, the book contains precisely two maps of Europe. Here’s the first one, from page 65:
Slovenia and Croatia mind-meld into one?
You might notice that Slovenia and Croatia are a single blob but, hey, whaddyagonnado? Mistakes happen right? You’re damn right they do. In fact, sometimes they happen repeatedly, like when they mess Slovenia up again on page 92:
Slovenia and Hungary: together at last?
This second map is even better. First, Slovenia’s famous chicken head seems to be suffering from a severe case of elephantiasis. Second, although this book was republished this year, it lists Slovenia (and all the other “new” members) as outside of the EU.
Unfortunately, there’s no time to be smug. Especially when, according to the Financial Times, Germany (and Zimbabwe??) are ahead of Slovenia in overall quality of education. Makes me wonder what kind of awful maps Slovenian kids are studying.
(Thanks Dietmar!)
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Zhey iz, indeed.
Re Zimbabwe, you think FT tested the white folks who’d fled to the UK?
First our head of Central Bank scares the shi*t out of the Germans and now this….
I think these studies are bullshit and can’t be taken seriously. I had a classmate this year who came from Germany and decided to continue her education with third year of our grammar school (gimnazija). Although she spoke slovenian perfect (therefore there was no language barrier) she had problems with maths, because it was on three times higher level than german’s (so she said)
“great Dietmar”? sounds good
Peter, you can’t generalise maths in Germany. It’s quite difficult in Baden-Württemberg, but some claim it’s easier in other states.
The education is quite difficult to compare and probably there’s no study without details that make the results questionable. But I’ve got the impression that the Slovene are often quite good in foreign languages. (while some of them don’t know how to deal with foreigners speaking Slovene)
This book was first made only short time before Slovenia joined the EU and republished shortly before Slovenia got the Euro. They brushed up the book some months ago, but I haven’t seen the new version yet, but I’ll have a look when possible.
If I were a child forced to learn geography from these Tetris-y maps, I would have to take up smoking crack.
And this question may be entirely beside the point, but why is this textbook in English?
The textbook is in English, because it’s meant to be used in English lessons
(”gimnazija”, the final years) Our teacher (second chance education) worked a lot with that book and it was dead boring. Alcohol, however mad the lessons amusing. I was the only one that was drunk quite often, but still the best of the course 
It looks to me as though Slovenia and Austria are amalgamated in the first map, not Slovenia and Croatia. (I like Austria better, anyway, so I see what I want to see!)
Also, what happened to Belarus and Ukraine etc on the second map? It looks like most of eastern Central Europe is adjacent to some sort of sea …
And England and Wales have also become one country, whilst Scotland remains separate. (?)
All in all, some excellent cartography that we have here!
As for maths in Slovene schools, it’s a rather sad state of affairs really, especially in the matura. But it’s not any/much better in Germany in my experience, although admittedly, as said above, it varies a lot from state to state.
So, what is Slovenian children learning?
I’m afraid and a bit sad to say that the maps Slovenian students use aren’t all that better. In a new 2007 edition of the atlas Slovenian students use for geography lessons, Montenegro is still a part of Serbia. And mind you, it’s a new edition of the book.
That’s only one mistake and there may be more, but I didn’t have time to check out the book more thoroughly.
I find the cover of this textbook curious, since it shows a naked guy hunched over at his computer… hm…
Also on the map of the British Commonwealth, the inset map of Central Europe (which besides being wrong, has nothing to do with the Commonwealth) completely blots out Australia and New Zealand, two of the wealthiest members of the Commonwealth. So there are several reasons to question the good sense of the designers of this book.
my scandinavian eye spots no border between norway and russia in the first map. I guess that’s a logical step if you want to get some sort of oil-empire going..
but what do I know, as on almost all maps over europe, no size scales makes sense.
hey dietmar, du schädigst unseren ruf
@gandalf:
there is a border. I guess it’s only a bit too small to recognise it here.
@Christian:
Spracherwerb im Fremdsprachenunterricht ist mit unserem Schulsystem sowieso nur relativ eingeschränkt möglich. 
aber gerne doch
Just a look at the second map: Montenegro is not shown as a separate state, Vatican, San Marino, Monaco, Liechtenstein and Andorra aren’t shown, Malta has sunk into the sea, the Gulf of Corinth (Greece) comes from the wrong side, the Ijsselmeer (Netherlands) isn’t shown, the eastern part of Crete got cut off… that map’s really crap.