Australia is a renegade province temporarily separated from England.
Cut the prof some slack. She was on the cutting edge, teaching the modern concept of alternative facts by example.
Apparently the island of New Guinea is considered part of the continent of Australia for geological reasons. Indonesia (except the part on the island of New Guinea), most of Micronesia/Oceana, and New Zealand are separate geologically from the continental plate of Australia.
A lot of people don’t realize that New Mexico is part of the United States.
Also, we lived in Idaho for a few years and had to explain to some of our relatives that we didn’t live in the Midwest - near all those other “I” states.
Probably why that state has “New Mexico USA” on some of its license plates.
http://www.mvd.newmexico.gov/standard-plates.aspx
So does this mean that my Australian passport is no good ???
Very upsetting. This just after I found out that my New Mexico passport doesn’t work very well either !
You may find that your Georgia passport (from the Caucasian country) does not automatically let you into Georgia (the US state).
Well, people still don’t believe HI is part of the US and say my English is good. 
My S has a DC drivers license. Several times when he’s been carded out of the area, the clerk questioned the validity of the identification, explaining that they don’t take licenses from out of the country.
Well, thank goodness my real ID DL has a gold circle around the star on my driver’s license. That should “prove” HI is a state. Lol!
My D’s Australian bf, who grew up in Bozeman, Montana (of all places) was very surprised to learn that the land of his birth is not an actual country - oops!
I was recently at a deposition and another attorney asked my client where he was born. He said Puerto Rico, to which the lawyer responded - have you filed paperwork to become an American citizen? Ordinarily, I interject on citizenship issues if I don’t know whether my client is legal, but this was a shocker to me.
@HImom - your English IS good. I would never have guessed you were from Hawaii.
Barack Obama’s speaks and writes excellent English too—he was educated in our island state.
I know many of you are not surprised at all, but I am just blown away by the ignorance in our country. How are schools doing such a poor job of teaching basic geography that our citizens don’t know their own states, don’t know that DC is not a foreign country, etc.?
Even if they know it’s a state, many people do not realize that the state comprises more than just the island of Hawaii (and indeed, more than just the 8 largest islands).
Even before this year’s hurricanes, some people did not realize the Puerto Rico is an unincorporated US territory. Once at SJU, I overheard an American asking an airport employee where the currency exchange desk was so that he could convert USD to "Puerto Rican money. " 
@Nrdsb4 - Its been an eye opener about the confusion over the status of Washington DC. S says its happened at least half a dozen times over the years. One time 2 clerks were confused and they had to call in the manager to accept it. I believe the license says “District of Columbia”, but his address is on there and it ends in “Washington, DC”. Its sad to think that people think District of Columbia = Colombia.
Or that the island where most of the population of the state lives is not the one with the same name as the state.
I used to try and explain visiting family in Turkey who lived on the Asian side and people said “wait – they’re Chinese?”
Ha, some people don’t even know where Maine is! We tell them, “North of Boston…”
Seems the US system has in such cases imparted impressive confidence, along with ignorance, such that the person is willing to decide and act based on something they just don’t know. I think there is justification for more rote learning of facts before you let students think their opinion is just as good as anyone else’s.