The world over, we Americans are renowned not for our culture - though everyone's buying it. Not for our technological superiority - though everyone wants it. Not even for our support of democracy, or at least the vague appearance thereof.

No, if you ask the average, fairly-educated citizen of the world what he or she thinks about Americans, that person will laugh and say "they can't even find my country on a map."

Chances are, they'd be right. We've got a bad reputation for having no idea about what goes on in the rest of the world, and I think it's well-deserved. Remember back during our actions in the former Yugoslavia, when American folks "on the street" thought Kosovo was a gas station?

We live in a first-world country with a third-class educational system, and the results have been rather saddening. That's why I found the latest conservative stink raised about our educational system absolutely hilarious. It seems there's this school out in California where 7th-graders are being given a rather innovative look at a foreign culture - Islam, in particular - through role-playing.

Some folks have just completely flipped out over it, as though this were akin to giving the kids dynamite and telling them to blow something up for their physics final. They seem to think these kids are going to convert to Islam, but that's just silly: I had to take a Spanish name for Spanish class, but I didn't immigrate to Mexico, now did I? Likewise, the folks in Latin Club dressed up in togas and "sold" the Freshmen members as slaves for a week, but I don't think that got them into bondage.

Having been in school not very long ago, I have a real interest in this story. In my day, we learned about the world through "Social Studies": classes that were some of the most dry, boring crap you'd ever get fed at a desk. Take one part history, one part geography and one part cultural anthropology, stir with boring methods of teaching and viola! - you had a classroom full of snoozing students.

The onus on making the subject interesting or exciting was entirely on us; The teacher just had to present the facts, make the tests and give us our grades. Every so often we had projects, but these tended towards drudgery and dullness, often resulting in sugarcube pyramids and other, uninspired drek. We'd all study like mad to pass that week's test, briefly revisit the topics for midterms and finals, and then completely forget about it come Summer. Inspired scholarship, ye be not here!

But what if the teachers had really gone out of their way to make the subjects interesting and exciting? How would we all have done if we'd had a chance to engage in some stimulating, educational fun? The sort of lessons that at least helped us retain what we learned for longer periods, and - at best - got us to want to learn more on our own?

Don't get me wrong: school should not be all fun and games. Students have to learn and teachers have to teach - that's a given. But in order for a student's education to be effective, that student has to WANT to learn: a desire that has to come from within. And if the difference between someone wanting to learn and not caring is the difference between a boring presentation and a lively, creative one, then I think creativity and innovation are the way to go.

All the fluster and fury over this case is because of bad timing. Right now we're fighting a War on Terror whose principal enemy seems to be radical Muslims, so of course something like this is going to get decried. Conversely, no one would be complaining if the teachers were having the students pretend to be Aztecs - at least so long as no one tried to sacrifice the Principal. And aren't the claims of "Proselyting" just rich when coming from those who think Bibles should go back into the classroom?

So let's try this on for size: call it a little experiment. Let the teachers continue their lessons, for good or ill, and then sneak back up on the students at random intervals in the years to come and see how much they remember. I'm certain what those 7th-graders are learning now is going to stick with them longer than yet another boring series of lectures. Maybe they'll still remember how to find the Red Sea on a map?

And as for those whiny conservatives - if they're so worried about the students, why don't they ask how they're going to compete in the global economy if they don't know why no one in Saudi Arabia picks up the phone on a Friday?

I'm tired of kissing ass - I can't sit still all day - You know I know your school's a lie - that's why you dragged me here.

Hyperactive Child ­ Dead Kennedys