Microsoft Word is crippling the youth of America from having a brighter future.

Sort of. In regards to the entire history of education, the computer has barely scratched the surface; only gaining significant relevancy some short 15-20 years ago. But if the “recent” pace of growing technology has shown us anything, it’s that comparisons to the past are often moot points. I mean, sometimes I just look at my iPhone and think stupidly about how impossible I would’ve thought this was only 5 years ago. 5 years ago! Most of my favorite TV shows have been running for longer than the time it’s taken for technology to amaze me.

But I digress. The plain, documented truth is that the standard of education in America is lower than just about every other relevant country in the world. And the scary thing is that America is seemingly the most sluggish to find change. Matched with the acceleration induced upon the world by technological growth (see: the internet), the potential for an American landslide in progress comes closer to reality.

I’m going to propose a pretty heavy change to the standard American education. Rather than (only) teaching students how to use “word processing” programs like Microsoft Word to write essays, let’s have them write their essays in HTML.

I’m not talking about throwing Designing with Web Standards at the kids, and having them learn about Doctypes, the w3c, etc etc etc – I’m talking about teaching them raw, nitty gritty, HTML. A simple five paragraph essay, and I don’t know how many of these I wrote throughout my middle and high school careers, could read as follows:

And that’s it! Rudimentary, fundamental, semantic HTML. Now, web development becomes an easy entry point for any kid. On top of that; being taught semantically sound HTML is something SOOO many developers take for granted – if they learned how to separate their content from their design & logic at a young age, by just focusing on their content, imagine how much better the web would be.

But mostly? All Americans will be able to language that they can develop into a skill – and this will work seamlessly into the fabric of their continuing education. And not just any skill, a skill that can easily later get them a J-O-B. That’s what the country’s educational system sorely lacks – a way for kids to grow up and get good jobs. HTML is an easy to train, easy to learn, and easy to teach skill that can become invaluable if taught on a widespread scale as an integrated portion of a student’s basic skill set.

So how to conclude? With the fact that I only editorialize in blogs tehse days, it’s hard for me to figure out what to say. My apologies to Ms. McNanny, my freshman year english teacher who taught me how to write an essay in the first place – this conclusion isn’t gonna be stellar.

What will an American student who learned HTML be saying in 20 years when they grow up?

Suck on that, china.