Tuesday, May 07, 2002

By Karen MacPherson, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

In his unusual new book, "If the World Were a Village" (Kids Can Press, $15.95, ages 6 and up), David Smith has shrunk the globe to create a powerful new lesson in geography for both children and adults.

Smith, who taught geography for years, begins his thought-provoking book by asking readers to imagine the world's entire population (currently about 6.2 billion) as a village of 100 people. In this village, each person would represent 62 million people.

"By learning about the villagers -- who they are and how they live -- perhaps we can find out more about our neighbors in the real world and the problems our planet may face in the future," writes Smith.

To discover more about this global village (and thus about the world), Smith then extrapolates information from a wide variety of sources and presents it in a series of snapshots. The result is a fascinating montage -- presented in a picture book format -- that allows readers to gain a global perspective.

Consider these facts about the 100 people in the village:

Sixty-one are from Asia, 13 from Africa, 12 from Europe, eight from South America and Central America (including Mexico), five from the United States and Canada and one is from Oceania (Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands).

Twenty-two speak a Chinese dialect, nine speak English, eight speak Hindi, seven speak Spanish, four speak Arabic, four speak Bengali, three speak Portuguese, and three speak Russian.

Thirty-nine are children ages 19 and under, and 10 are adults ages 60 and older.

Thirty-two are Christian, 19 are Muslim, 15 are nonreligious, 13 are Hindu, 12 practice a folk religion, six are Buddhist, two belong to other global religions such as the Ba'hai faith or Sikhism, one is Jewish.

Only seven have computers.

For many readers, these facts are surprising, Smith said in a recent interview.

"I had an e-mail from a seventh-grade teacher saying that a student had been going back and forth between two pages of the book. When the teacher asked what he was doing, the student replied that he was trying to figure out how there could be 19 Muslims in the village but only four villagers who speak Arabic," Smith said. "He didn't realize that Muslims speak many different languages, including English."

Even more poignant are the facts about daily life in the village. Of the 100 villagers:

Sixty people are always hungry, and 26 of these are severely undernourished. Only 24 villagers always have enough to eat.

Seventy-five have access to a source of safe water, either in their homes or within a short distance, while 25 others spend a large part of their day simply getting safe water.

Sixty have adequate sanitation, while 40 do not.

Sixty-eight breathe clean air, while 32 breathe polluted air.

Seventy-six have electricity, while 24 do not.

Those kinds of numbers, Smith hopes, will bring geography into his readers' hearts and minds. He also hopes that parents and other adults will try to expand the book's message by using some of the geography games and other activities provided at the end of the book.

"This book is not about numbers," Smith said. "It's about people, and the idea that we all need to be a little more accepting of each other and know more about each other."

Smith has been working on this idea for many years. During the 26 years he spent as a seventh-grade geography teacher, Smith developed a curriculum called "Mapping the World By Heart."

With the "Mapping the World By Heart" curriculum, teachers help students to use memorization, study and lots of games to learn the world's geography. By the end of the year, students are able to produce an intricately detailed world map using no study aids other than their own memories.

The curriculum was published in the late 1980s and generated immediate interest. Smith appeared on the "Today" show, and Time magazine printed a full-page article on the curriculum.

With the success of the curriculum, Smith quit teaching full time 10 years ago and became a consultant, training others in the "Mapping the World By Heart" program.

"I began to think about how else we could incorporate a sense of world-mindedness into what we were doing," Smith said.

A student showed him the way. The student was facing a choice between taking French and Spanish and asked Smith, "If this classroom were the world, how many people would speak French and how many would speak Spanish?"

"It was an epiphany for me," Smith said. "It was a brilliant way of looking at the world."

Pulling together data from numerous sources, Smith wrote the text for "If the World Were a Village." Featuring bold artwork by illustrator Shelagh Armstrong, the book is selling well enough to go into multiple printings, and Smith is thinking about a sequel.

As he writes in "If the World Were a Village": "Knowing who our neighbors are, where they live and how they live, will help us live in peace."

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