MY story has been one that is in no way unique or special, however much some astonished adults may feel otherwise, and that conventionality of my story is due to the fact that I am a student left behind by a bureaucratic and deeply-flawed education system which places a premium on standardised tests and other numbers on a piece of paper and little to no emphasis on the unique abilities which all students possess. My story starts at a small history museum in a California town no one has heard of nestled in the hills, but just minutes away from the centres of innovation of the Silicon Valley, for I walked into that museum on a hot summer’s day in 2005 as a pudgy 10-year-old who had been following politics since the Florida debacle of 2000 and had spent much of the ensuing half decade devouring books on history and politics, immersing myself in the valour of Napoleon and the values of Jefferson.

For my quirkiness, I was shunned by my peers and viewed with puzzlement by my teachers, and that only served to accelerate my passion for the humanities, where I could transport myself into a world where I was able to succeed, a world where decency and integrity trumped expedience and ambition.

My business at the museum that day was to ask to volunteer, a request which few other elementary students would have made in this day and age when video games offered entertainment and playground games seemed to be the main pastime. The request was granted by the amused curator, who quickly took me under her wing and soon had me interviewing local city council members about their careers and ambitions, a pursuit which landed me on the pages of the region’s largest newspaper at only 11 years of age.

That project mushroomed over the years into a global juggernaut encompassing thousands of the world’s leading luminaries in the fields of politics, business, and entertainment, the results of which were published in e-book form in January 2012.

As my museum work was winding down in December 2007, I wandered into a volunteer training at my local history museum for an upstart presidential candidate who many Americans had no idea about, Barack Obama. That day, I was trained in the art of voter outreach and soon became a formidable resource to the local organisation, as a result of which I was allowed to stand behind Michelle Obama at a primary-eve rally packed with university students and to attend the then Senator’s nomination acceptance speech, in addition to being sent a personal letter from the man himself congratulating me on my youthful enthusiasm and encouraging me to continue to be empathetic to the plight of those of our countrymen who were less fortunate than I.

After the Senator became the President, I worked with his grassroots organising team on the ground floor of the heated health care reform debate before spending a year experimenting with Republican politics and finding it thoroughly unsatisfactory and unsettling, causing me to stand where I am today as a progressive blogger and activist at 17 years of age.

The motive for my description of my past, which some may term impressive, is not to advance my story or push forward any agenda, but rather to provide a backdrop for the realities of my future. Many may assume that due to my involvement with civic affairs and my authoring of a book at the age of 16, I would be nearly assured of entry into a decent four-year university.

However, as is the case with many of my peers, just as I have strengths, I have weaknesses as well, and mine is the quantitative disciplines, mainly math and science, where I struggled throughout my educational career, as a result of which I will be staying home in Northern California whiling away two years at a community college where classes quickly get packed and where the stressing of numbers on a sheet of paper as indicators of achievement will continue unabated.

I do not wish at all to blame my lack of success in the educational realm on my teachers, for there is little they can do when a combination of government bureaucrats and special interests place the advancement of themselves and their ideals over the preparation of young Americans for the competitive and globalised world of the future.

Indeed, my generation will undoubtedly face a set of monumental and unprecedented challenges in its day, and it is thus clear to most observers that it is of the essence that American youth grow into educated, responsible, and civic-minded citizens able to compete against any other person anywhere in the increasingly flat world. The sad reality of the situation is that we here in the United States are farther from such a goal than any other nation in the developed world and that we are thus leaving our nation’s greatest resource, our children and youth, behind by the tens of thousands.

Therefore, I present my story as a cautionary tale for our long-time partner in the quest for global peace and stability of the results of an education system that is fundamentally flawed at a time when the developed world can least afford it to be so.