Decline of America: Part 1

     Where have we as a society gone wrong?  What message are we sending to our children that their education takes a back seat to being able to sing or excel in athletics?
     Long gone are the days where children are held responsible for their lack of performance in the classroom. Now any failure is the mistake of the teacher.  Extra curricular activities have taken the forefront in our measurement of a child's performance, as we have strayed away from the very basics of education.  If you don't believe me, take a look at the video from this past Martin Luther King Jr. Day, where Jimmy Kimmel's Lie Witness News shed some scary light on our educational system.  
     I am beyond 100% positive that if I were to go survey a handful of people, I bet that all of them would know who Tina Fey, Miley Cyrus, Justin Bieber, Michael Jordon, Tom Brady, and George Clooney are.  If I were to ask those same people who Ben Franklin, John Hancock, Paul Revere,Walt Whitman, or Benedict Arnold were, I would not receive as many knowledgeable responses.  This makes me ask myself where all of this started.

        I think we first have to point to technology.  We are so connected with everyone and everything at any moment time.  Case in point, we are all able to be connected to out favorite celebrity or athlete through social media.  Looking at Twitter, the top 100 of the most followed people, nearly 95% of them are entertainers who have millions of followers.  In today's world, those people with the most social media following are influencing our youth and society in ways never before.  Every day, millions of people can see how these celebrities are living their lives and mold themselves around what foods they are buying, their dress and where they stand on current events.  Make no mistake about it, today's celebrity is far more powerful than the President.
     So how can we fix this decline?  How can we fix a culture that bases their ideologies on today's celebrity?  First it's important to teach all of our children that just because someone is on TV, or on stage, does not mean that these people hold more value than that of someone who is not.  More importantly, just because someone is a celebrity does not mean their ideas are the solution for the world's ails.  Let's start awarding academic accomplishments more than that of anything else in school, and cease the non-sense of giving everyone a ribbon for attending.  We are only harming our children by sparing their feelings if they did not win.  Defeat can lead to great innovations!