Just a rant?

I found the "Shift Happens" youtube video amazing! It is so hard to grasp all those concepts and think about how they change daily. One thing I think a lot of Americans particularly forget is the vastness of the other countries in the world. I know many of my friends do not spend any time thinking about life in China or India two countries which are quickly growing to become powerful countries and most likely will grow to be superpowers eventually. I think the hard fact of that is terrible. We live in a country that so rarely focuses on other countries (or at least has been my personal experience). Through grade school we continually learned about Virginia history, and US history, dabbled in some studying of the US government, and multiple times repeated the study of ancient cultures and countries which no longer exist. HOW IS THAT BENEFICIAL?? Sure going over those countries a few times is helpful, you need to know the history to know where you came from, to understand ancient ideas that we still have in practice today but I know nothing of Chinas more recent history, nothing of their current political system or really what an average street looks like. I can hardly even imagine the size of their population, a population that in my lifetime will continue to grow and will continue to make changes to my life.  I know even less about India. If you wikipedia "potential superpowers" a list appears accompanied by a map of the world with highlighted countries. Looking at this map if there were no key below it I do not think more than 5 of my friends could name the countries highlighted (these are friends with the same education that I have, using FCPS and the same local high-school). THESE ARE SUPPOSED TO ONE DAY BE COUNTRIES THAT INFLUENCE THE ENTIRE WORLD! The list includes Brazil, China, the EU, Russia, India, the US; through grade school I was taught nothing about any of these countries. OH WAIT YES I WAS: what seems like a million years ago Brazil had Indians living it and WOW that has helped me to understand the country so much better. The point of my rant is that I was educated in a country that today is considered a superpower, in fact I was even educated no more then 30 miles from the capital of said superpower and yet when it comes to the knowledge of the world, the other countries in it, the history of it all, and my knowledge of its citizens I am limited. HOW IS THIS HELPFUL FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE? I am lucky that I have two parents who focus on world news. My mother is now managing editor at the Center for Public Integrity after more than 20 years in the journalism field, and my father worked for Reuters, the AP, freelanced for the World Bank and lived in numerous countries throughout his life. I am lucky to have them in the sense that they do not let the world pass by, since I was a small child I have been exposed to world news; through work related conversations as well as NPR and the BBC but for children who are not as lucky as I, what do they know of the world? Today we live in a world that is quickly changing, yet my generation seems to nearly completely disconnected from the news. That is a problem. One day we will be tasked with running this nation, one day we will have to interact with the other countries in it and at the rate we are traveling at now we may have every means to do so, but very few will have anything to say.