If you just narrowly focus on the media news, economics, human morality, and politics in general, then you may prematurely conclude that America is plunging into corrupt decadence, which also ended the Roman Empire, and that there is just too much wrong with America and no easy fix in sight.  If you focus on the vanguard of developments in education, science, and technology, then you may conclude that there are a lot of good things going on and that there are a lot of right things going on that offer a lot of hope for many in the near foreseeable future.

Yes, many of us are destined to lead mediocre lives, since many are satisfied to live with or are stuck with old, rather fruitless, habits.  However, if you can develop courage, integrity, ambition or desire, determination, perseverance, and a can do-spirit, then your future opportunities will abound.  All you need to include is a useful education and self-education.  If you desire improvement, then you can gradually climb the economic and social ladder to a prosperous level, and the climb will mostly be a happy one, with some transient setbacks along the way.

A useful quality education should be the goal of every nation because theoretically, a useful education passes on the culture of the old generation onto the new generation with some modifications.  It is not only important to stimulate intellectual curiosity and pass on useful old knowledge, but also important to pass on the learning of good character or good social behavior, which should start in a happy, financially responsible, functional family life.  Fail to indoctrinate the value of integrity, trustworthiness, dependability, competence, a positive work ethic, caring, and friendliness, and you create a recipe for individual failure and ultimately social chaos and dysfunction.

Education in the STEM fields — science, technology, engineering, and math — with the help of talented individuals has led to remarkable progress in space, rockets, drones, robots, artificial intelligence, computers, cell phones, self-driving cars, and the dissemination of knowledge via the internet.

Internet education is revolutionary because anyone at any age can access the internet and relatively easily self-educate with all the free and low-priced courses available from even some top universities.  There will soon be no excuse for not learning about a subject that interests you, since everything will be available via the internet, with a laptop or cell phone being almost the only tool needed.

Even poverty-stricken students in crime-ridden communities who have the motivation and a desire to learn will have access to some of the best individualized interactive audiovisual education courses designed for slow, medium, and fast learners.  Internet education means that learning can take place 24/7 or at any time you have some free time to learn.  There will be no class bullies or social pressure not to learn in the safe and secure confines of your home and/or a computerized classroom using headphones.

Charter schools are only a partial solution to reversing the dysfunctional education bureaucracy in public schools in poor neighborhoods, with many dysfunctional teachers, parents, and dysfunctional peer students.  The only real solution is an internet classroom setting where the love of learning is instilled with feedback from other students also taking the internet courses simultaneously without dysfunctional teachers, family, and peers interfering.

So a quality internet classroom education is realistically possible, but the dysfunctional teaching bureaucracy and teacher union–bribed politicians will be fighting it tooth and nail to keep the lousy status quo.  Even Bill Gates fears the backlash from teacher unions and the teaching bureaucracy, or he would more fervently be pushing internet interactive audio-visual classroom education with a vengeance, especially for poor families in crime-infested neighborhoods.

A quality, useful education for almost all is possible, which teaches reading; writing; basic math (including percentages); budgeting; morals or ethics; and civics courses that teach about the bill of rights, the constitution, and how political participation and voting can improve a community.

The future of education looks bright thanks to advancing technology and interactive audio-visual education, so there is a lot of valid optimism about the future of America.  The solution to our problems is not only how to teach, but what to teach and what constitutes a useful education.  Teach the basics first as a prerequisite like reading, writing, and basic math, and then let the students and parents determine what they want to learn or what they are interested in and also good at.

Yes, computers and computer software will eventually replace most of the teaching profession, and that is as it should be, especially in poor, crime-ridden, drug-infested neighborhoods.  I can foresee the day when poor neighborhood teachers will just be low-paid supervisors overseeing a classroom of students interacting audio-visually with their laptops or computers in the classroom under secure and peaceful conditions.  No discipline problems, little if any bullying, no shame in performing well in courses, and hopefully a drug-free classroom.  There will still be buses transporting students safely from classrooms to a home environment, which unfortunately will still be largely dysfunctional single-parent family units.

Ideally, customized education for slow, medium, and fast learners means that the archaic promotion based on age will eventually disappear, and the fast learners will graduate school earlier than the rest.  Many high school seniors will already be taking college courses, or perhaps some will even be graduating college before the age of 18.  The major drawback of present classroom teaching is that teachers generally have to teach to the average students, leave the slow students clueless, and bore the fast learners.

The days of trying to treat unequal students as academically equal will be over, and the unworkable philosophy of trying to force equal outcomes from unequal students as well as school promotion based on age will bite the dust.  Finally, a quality education for almost all the inhabitants of America, regardless of socioeconomic status!

What is right with America?  A functional, practical, efficient educational system for almost all!  Individualized, audio-visual, interactive computer education for almost everyone, no matter what your age!

Image: Pixabay, Pixabay License.

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