On becoming a confident, well-adjusted busboy...

While critical thinking is an essential part of the defence against pseudo-science, general knowledge also has an important role. The more knowledge you have about more things, the better equipped you are to detect the propagation of nonsense. However, the authorities may not be so concerned.

The following item is based on a broadcast on National Radio's Sunday Supplement on 13 August 1989.

There's something I admire about Sale of the Century, and I don't mean its tinsel consumerism. I like it for the way it rewards you for knowing lots of little things. Not vitally important things, just obscure tit-bits of knowledge—the capital of Bangladesh, or the composer of Rigoletto (starts with a "V"!).

In a way, the show addresses the fabric of our intellectual lives. As we're educated and as we live we learn facts—the meanings of words, bits of mathematics, geography, history, medicine, the inventor of the phonograph, the current president of Argentina. Our memories are a buzzing concatenation of such notions, with the Battle of Hastings indexed alongside our next dentist appointment, where people such as our standard-one teacher cohabit with Queen Nefertiti, Richard Seddon, Moby Dick, and Philip Liner.

And this isn't just trivia: being able to understand a newspaper report on Japanese politics isn't trivial, and neither is knowing a thing or two about the current Japanese government. Outside the world of television quiz games, knowing about these things probably won't make you rich, but it will make your mental life richer.

In this regard, I was very disappointed to read some recent remarks made to a gathering of school principals by the new Chief Executive Officer of the Ministry of Education, Maris O'Rourke. She told the assembled educators that "education" as she put it—and I quote—"must concentrate on the growth and development of people rather than content, subject matter or maintenance learning of current knowledge." When the shock wore off, I was struck by a sense of déjd vu. This is the same educational theory that helped to cause the disastrous recent history of education in the United States—a history which has seen a relentless decline in American academic abilities for three decades. A recent cartoon in the New Yorker made the point: a 1960s quizmaster asks a contestant ""What's the capital of Wyoming?" By 1980, it's "What's Wyoming," while by the 90s he's lucky to find a contestant who knows what planet we're on.

Such a decline in general knowledge is something New Zealand cannot tolerate. New Zealand needs for its future a populace that is literate, numerate, and technologically and culturally sophisticated. We're adrift in a world that's hardly aware we exist and doesn't much care. We need people who know computers, who know foreign languages, people whose technical and business know-how is held against a larger backdrop of political, historical, and cultural knowledge. The creative and productive choices of the future—the decisions that will keep our country an attractive place in which to live, and a competitive player in the commercial markets of the world—these choices will have to be made by people who know a lot—and I mean, educational theories aside, a lot of facts—subject matter, content, and current knowledge.

It is one of the most tiresome cliches of educational theory that it is the job of our schools to teach people fulfillment and confidence. Wrong! It's the job of our schools to give young people a knowledge and know-how that they can be confident about.

It's a scary world out there, and if we don't demand internationally competitive levels of skills and knowledge from the young women and men who will take this country into the next century, we're headed toward third-world status. Oh, our kids will make happy, confident people—but they'll be, as Stuart Macmillan has written, happy, confident busboys and waitresses in Japanese-owned hotels.

Actually, as a teacher, I find that people like knowing things. Who doesn't get just a small charge in knowing the right answer to a Sale of the Century question? Knowledge is a good thing—why, it's even fun. But how can we convince the Ministry of Education?