They taught us that Geography is old fashioned so the geography classes and history were all replaced with "Social Studies" at some time in the 80s. Most of that class was just about reading holocaust books, I think we had a week or two where they taught us what islands and fjords are, but the only time putting names to countries and capitals on a map came up was an optional extra credit quiz in 8th grade. Most people skipped it.
replyWe had to take Geography, Social Studies, World History, American History, Civics, etc. as separate classes.
replyIslands/fjords etc were covered in Geology/Earth Science, and we also took separate courses for those as well.
Geography was reserved for understanding where things are in the Earth, how borders are defined, a little bit of world history as far as borders changing, etc. And also Apartheid for some reason because I guess they didn't know where else to stick that lesson in.
Rote memorization has never been my strong suit and so I suffered a lot in geography as it was taught to me. I got a D in that class. Now that I'm out of school and can actually properly learn, it all sticks a lot better because I've learned to contextualize everything and link together facts.