USA = Unreasonable Stupidity of America

Okay people.

I read a blog post over at Voice of America that disturbed me greatly.  (It is possible that blog is just a propaganda tool of the US government, but, I doubt it; the reason I doubt that the government is using that blog only to scare me is basically because many of the claims made on that site have been witnessed by me firsthand.  For instance, I graduated from a public high school in 2005, and I remember that some of my classmates did not know who George Washington was.  No joke).

Anyway, here is the blog post that initially got me all riled up: http://blogs.voanews.com/tedlandphairsamerica/2011/05/05/u-s-a-the-uninformed-states-of-america/.

Specifically, this quote drove me crazy: "Students can’t be blamed for not knowing what they haven’t been taught".

Why did that statement drive me crazy, you ask?  We'll, first, it's only partially true.  The teachers have an obligation to teach, and the students have an obligation to learn.  I know for a fact that my school made students take several history and government classes (and I went to a sub-par high school).  And, in those classes, students had the opportunities to learn about American history and civics; however, I know students who never did homework but ended up passing with D's.  That means that the teacher failed to hold the students accountable, and the students failed to study.  There is failure on both ends.

The more distressing part, however, is the fact that our government has spent hundreds of billions of dollars on lower education, yet, we are becoming less-educated.  What exactly are we paying for?  I am guessing, based on my brother's input (he's an English teacher at my alma mater), we are paying ineffective teachers' salaries, exorbitant pay packages for administrators, and excessively large payments for retirees.  The system is unreasonably stupid, America.

And, I read some more of Mr. Landphair's blog posts.  This one I found to be even more troubling than the first one: http://blogs.voanews.com/tedlandphairsamerica/2011/04/29/math-smath/.

Math, smath?  I can't stand that sort of position.  Granted, I am naturally a fan of math (I hate real and complex analysis while I enjoy analytical geometry and topology) and I understand the discipline much better than most people.  However, there is no better training in terms of understanding logic and reason than math training.  That is precisely why we should be encouraging more students to take math: critical thinking will be vital in terms of maintaining American superiority in a globalized economy based on information.

Basically, it all comes down to this: right now, USA stands for "Unbearable Stupidity of America".  In the future, it is crucial that USA stands for "Unbelievably Smart Americans".

(Okay, that might have been really cheesy, but, it should make my point clear: the USA is stupid right now, but, in the future, Americans must be smart to survive in the world).

And that is precisely why the "Math, Smath" article bothered me so much.  Math is universal. It is important.
I think we should start shoving math down everyone's throat as soon as possible.  No one should leave high school in the USA without taking a course on trigonometry.  No one should leave college without understanding basic calculus. Other countries (South Korea and China, for instance) make their students do this much.  We need to do the same if we're going to compete.