by Matthew J. Geiger

Created on: August 03, 2009

While the American primary education system is considered a disaster by many critics, pop culture trends and our political circus of seemingly irrational policies tend to reinforce the notion that Americans are dumb as a nation. In truth, this is because, at times, Americans do dumb things that get a lot of attention while the many more smart things we do, often fade into the background. Furthermore, the Great Melting Pot is filled with a lot of perspectives and interests that often conflict, so nonsense actions are inevitable in a nation that has been more or less successful on many fronts.

When considering America's education system, people must understand the goal is broader and far more ambitious than in other nations. Not only must we educate every US citizen from very different backgrounds, but the system is supposed to promote individuality and provoke thought; whereas, other systems can tend to focus on forcing students to regurgitate a plethora of knowledge and skills.

Our system requires students to have a broad educational background and learn independently. This means America will almost assuredly never match the scores of foreign competitors on tests for specific technical knowledge. On the other hand, reform efforts directed at helping students how to learn in a broad spectrum of subjects, will allow America to become the most creative and innovative nation in a multitude of fields.

Looking at American society, there are plenty of areas where we act rather silly. Young Americans would rather become experts at Guitar Hero versus learning how to play a real instrument. Meanwhile, most adults obsess over shows like Desperate House Wives yet are unable to remember key facts they learned in school and everyone worships celebrities, such as Brittany Spears, Anna Nicole Smith, Michael Jackson, just so we can psychological abuse and emotionally rape them when there is controversy until they die.

Clearly, Americans, as a mob, act very illogically; however, the same can be said of any culture. Consider millions of Asians practically live inside video games to the point they even purchase virtual property for thousands of dollars while Europeans literally stampede each other over soccer matches. All cultures develop seemingly stupid obsessions, but these obsessions serve as points of cohesion for those cultures.

As for the political system, Americans constantly demonstrate a lack of understanding when it comes to issues and this leads to Frankenstein

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