Here is something huge. Mark it on your calendars, and celebrate it every year. Pull out your party hats and bake a little lemon cake. Because on this date, April 8, 1796, a man named Carl Friedrich Gauss — a German mathematician — proves the “Quadratic Reciprocity Law.” That is the ability to determine the solvability of any quadratic equation in modular arithmetic.
Now, you may be wondering what the big TO-DO might be.
And honestly, I am wondering too.
You see, I have no freaking idea what that means, and I’m not going to learn at this point. Because here it is the thing. I’ve survived for nearly 60 years without knowing what the “quadratic reciprocity law” is. And I’ll probably be fine for the rest of my little life without it.
I’m sure some people have to know this information. I’m not sure who they are exactly, but they are most likely out there. Right now, while we are sipping on our coffees, sitting in our fuzzy slippers with a cat on our laps, some scientist is in an underground lab in Virginia, looking at a clipboard and running the quadratic reciprocity law through their scientific head.
Probably.
But here in Camden, Ohio, I don’t need to know it.
Which brings up the question of learning. What should we learn about, and what should we not?
Or. To really drill down. What should we teach our children, and what should we not?
And who should decide these things?
Here in the United States, the topic has been one of contention.
Books are being banned in certain places. Histories of peoples are being white-washed. Parents are stepping in and pressuring school administrations, sometimes to the point of violence.
But in places like China, education is primarily managed by the state-run public education system, which falls under the Ministry of Education. All citizens must attend school for a minimum of nine years, which is funded by the government. And the curriculum is decided by the government.
It’s all very tricky now, isn’t it?
Because the people that control the curriculum ultimately control future generations.
So then.
What do our young people need to know?
What do we need to know?
I won’t offer any opinions on this other than one.
I think by the time a person reaches (or nears) adulthood, they should know how to think for themselves. To truly think for themselves.
I’m a good example, I believe. I was baptized Catholic when I was about a week old. I was raised in a Catholic household by Catholic parents. I attended a Catholic grade school and high school.
Yet. By the time I was about 16 or 17 years old, I began to question the Catholic religion. So. Somewhere along the line, I learned to think for myself. To question. To doubt. Despite the fact that I was mired in Catholic dogma.
When I turned 18, a legal adult, I quit going to Catholic Mass. And besides funerals and weddings, I have not attended since that time.
Back to education and learning. Another interesting facet of this? The thing responsible for learning? Our brains. And our brains don’t finish developing and maturing until we reach our mid-to-late 20s. The part of the brain behind the forehead, called the prefrontal cortex, is one of the last parts to mature. This area of our noggins is responsible for skills like planning, prioritizing, and making good decisions.
So with that? I’m old enough to know that I will not be needing the quadratic reciprocity law anytime soon. And if something changes and I do need it? My brain is old enough and mature enough to seek out that information and learn what it needs to learn. For I can think for myself.
But I wonder, through all of this “selective schooling,” “canceling of certain histories,” and “book banning,” just how many of the people making those decisions truly learned to think for themselves.
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“The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking.”
― Albert Einstein
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“Reading furnishes the mind only with materials of knowledge; it is thinking that makes what we read ours.”
― John Locke
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“Five percent of the people think;
ten percent of the people think they think;
and the other eighty-five percent would rather die than think.”
― Thomas A. Edison
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Learn the laws of learning.
