Jordan... is that in Utah?

I first moved to the US about 4+ years ago. I went straight from Amman, Jordan; a city of about 3 million people, to Cadillac, Michigan, a town in the middle of nowhere in northern Michigan with a population of about 10,000 people. People, for the most part, had no idea there was a country by the name of Jordan, let alone where in earth it is. It was a bit of a culture shock moving from a huge city where things are always happening and there’s almost always something to do, to a tiny little town who’s main attraction is a Super Wal-Mart on the other side of town, a movie theater with 4 theaters, and the lake (but only during the brief summers). People asked me some of the craziest questions like:
“What do they speak in Jordan? Jordanese?”
“Where’s Jordan? You mean East Jordan, MI?”
“Jordan… Is that in Utah?”
“Do you have TVs in Jordan?”
“Do you live in tents like in Laurence of Arabia?”
“Do you ride camels to get around?”
I was in 8th grade at the time and, despite growing up in a foreign country, knew a fair amount about American history as well as the names, locations, and capitals of all 50 states. I was pretty surprised that no one knew where Jordan was, or at least that it was a part of the Middle East, the area of greatest turmoil for the past what? At least 50 years of recent history, but realistically, the turmoil dates back thousands and thousands of years. They were almost all Christian, except for the Schappas, the single non-Christian family in town; they were Jewish. I thought “Don’t they know that Jesus was baptized in the JORDAN river, and that it was near Jerusalem which is in Palestine (Israel, Palestine, whatever you choose to call it, it’s all one big mess in reality), which is on the west side of the JORDAN river bank, opposite (oh my gosh!) Jordan the COUNTRY.
So my point being, junior high, in a town like that, for a person like me, was two long years of hell. Point two being, US public schools REALLY need better geography classes.