I read the article Newsweek put out about the ignorance of Americans. As should have been expected, the comments left on the website were from right wing reactionaries who blamed the decline of our public schools (the comments I saw were very careful to attribute this to public schools) to overpaid union teachers (who make over $100,000 a year some said) and liberals in the White House, Hollywood and other areas. Now, these are the same people who want to make sure we stick to the American ideal, who say we shouldn't be influenced by the socialist Europeans. Time and time again they talk of the current administration as being socialist and bad. When you look at this from a worldview, its European and Asian countries that are doing well in educating their kids.

We have to take a good look at that because unlike the United States, some of the countries weed out bad students. A lot don't get to go to university because they will head to a trade school rather than a school preparing them for college. Another issue has to do with payment of college. If your wealthy you're going to have a better chance of getting into a better school.

When I hear people talk bad about our education system, and believe me there are problems with it, I think about an old friend of mine. This actually goes for a lot of people. He used to say he would have loved being in the old knights of the roundtable days. Another era he liked was the Renaissance period. His assumption was he would be at the high end of society, able to reap the rewards of the riches of the time. I pointed out to him what was the guarantee that he would have been part of the aristocracy? Statically, he probably would have ended up being poor and a peasant. He wouldn't be living in the castle, or would be going to school at the feet of Copernicus. He would be in the field, working hard for little money, no time off and would probably die at a young age.

We have a bit of an advantage in this day and age, something we don't take advantage of. Parents have the right and responsibility to help in the education of their children. It doesn't have to be the full responsibility of the teacher to teach their kids. I remember one year when I brought home a terrible math report card. My mother worked, my dad was off to sea, but my mother made sure she drilled me on math. I hated it because I couldn't go out to play with my friends, but she was going to make sure I learned math. I cried and thought she was cruel to me, until I went back to school. I did so well and tested so well I had the opportunity to jump two grades.

My mother didn't wait around for the school to get around to helping me out; she took matters into her own hands. In fact, when we moved to another state, I took an intelligence test put out by the school and when the report came back I was accused of cheating. To put it in blunt terms (we were in the South) they never had a Negro kid test so high. I had to take another test, where I scored even higher.

There is good and bad on letting a child just flow through the system. School systems are different in every part of the country but it is possible for people, especially kids, to learn on their own. I know people who can tell me intimate details of each bachelor on The Bachelor show, who can distinguish between the Housewives of Atlanta, New Jersey and New York. There are kids who can recite the worlds to every Justin Beiber song and tell you what he had for breakfast three weeks ago. Sometimes we just allow junk to get put in our heads.

With all the tragedy going on in Japan, how many people know how a nuclear reactor works? Because it is on the radar, it is very easy to find information on that but how many people are seeking it out? Americans are stupid in a lot of things, and probably stupid is used for chock value rather than for an informative view. Americans have the ability to know a lot more than they do, but we have had the privilege of being this beacon of hope and somewhat separated from the world at large. In a lot of cases we look up stuff to confirm our position, not to challenge it. Occasionally I will watch FoxNews or listen to Rush Limbaugh or other conservative talk shows. I listen to them to get an understanding as to why so many people are willing to believe what the hosts says. When you have them on day after day, having them as background, they do get into your head if you aren't careful. It's like the people leaving comments for the education article in Newsweek. I laughed when I read about the $100000 a year teachers salary because I know a lot of teachers from a lot of different states and none of them come close to earning $100000 a year. It is easy to take what the commentators say at face value but we have to be able to think independently, or as they used to say in the old days, use common sense.

People would rather blame their own problems and shortcomings on others instead of improving themselves. They would rather get wrapped in the emotions of the moment rather than sitting back and taking a look at what is being said, verifying the information for themselves. That's why you have people who don't know who the Vice President is or have trouble on a citizenship test. Just a little last note, because this was a funny thing about the test. A lot of Americans who took the test couldn't identify when Independence Day was. When the question was changed to when was the Fourth of July, they knew the answer.