Mapping Experience

A current dilemma:

A student I tutor asked me to help her with maps. I quickly realized that her schools had dismally failed her. As a freshman in high school, she had practically no fluency with maps, georgraphy, history, or political science. She didn't know the difference between the US and the rest of the world on a map, what or where Europe really was, how many languages people spoke in different countries, etc... It seemed more like she didn't have "map language" than that she didn't know anything about these issues, but I knew that she needed to know this stuff in order to succeed in school. I quickly pulled up a world map on a computer and launched into a 90 minute survey of all of world geography in history, including the 7 continents, basic introduction to government and economics, a brief brief brief idea of colonialism, and any other pertinent interesting information I could think of.

You can imagine how problematic this was. I'm stuck. I want her to succeed in school, but I don't want to fall in to the trap of enslaving her within the dominant discourse without any sense of critical thought. I tried to show some of the ways that the "map" of the world is unjust, but with 90 minutes, I was racing to tell everything I knew about the map. I am going to keep working with her on this stuff, and any and all suggestions are greatly appreciated!