School System Not Promoting Real Intelligence

Over the last few months, I’ve spent a lot of time discussing politics and the presidential candidates with both friends and strangers, and it has occurred to me how little the average American knows about U.S politics. After hearing another Chapman student attempt to cover up their cluelessness with a rant about something completely unrelated to the subject at hand, I began to think about my own experience and why so many educated Americans are so unaware of how their own country works. As I contemplated this question, I realized even I had some major grey areas in understanding the U.S political system and knew next to nothing about many foreign countries’ political policies.
Since it was obvious to me that this is a national problem and not just a problem at Chapman, I began tracing my own political history and I realized little of my current understanding was a result of my years of schooling. Of course, I had received the basic facts about the different government branches and offices early in my childhood, but to my recollection there was little importance put on actually understanding how the system worked. Instead, I was forced to memorize empty definitions in elementary school that I was too young to fully understand, and after that, I was left hanging, not even encouraged to keep up to date on current political trends.
In my opinion, education is one of the most influential factors to a countries success, and this is a perfect example of how the US is failing its kids. How can we justify a school system that is producing graduates that only have a trivial understanding of how their own country operates and are unable to fully grasp how it directly relates to them, or at least don’t care enough to think about it? Not to mention, the average American has little knowledge of the world outside its own borders, which really makes us shine in the international arena. I guess I can’t blame the last one completely on our school system, considering the media may play a small part in it, but it definitely contributes. When you consider the current state of the US economy and our problems abroad, it really makes you think about how much our school system impacts our country’s success and its citizens. I’m just throwing this out there, but maybe if our schools focused on subject matter relative to the current state of our country and its relation to the world, and then encouraged them to think analytically about cause and effect, we would have a lot more successful citizens. It could be that teaching our children how to successfully master the art of standardized testing in math, reading, and science does not produce future innovators and leaders of this country.