For students not aspiring to be mathematicians (which is, apparently, all students of mine), math is an extremely boring and useless subject. I am not as perturbed as other teachers when asked that ubiquitous question, because I once felt the same way. Had somebody told me I would eventually become a junior high school math teacher, I would have laughed in their face. The fact that I am now enjoying math aside, today's topic of discussion is Knowledge.
Knowledge is power, or so the saying goes. Power reminds me of the use of force to attain means (by the way, that student who beat up that other student was suspended for 3 days). Knowledge, however, is the ultimate means to attain a desirable end for the one wielding it, as it allows one to know exactly what type of force would be the most advantageous. This is aside from the amount of bloodshed that has been caused by weapons of destruction developed by knowledgeable scientists.
The fact of the matter is, is that the question is an invalid one. We try to point out to our students this fact, but they only think we are telling them this to shut them up. Knowledge for use of power is also a bastardization of the idea of knowledge for knowledge's sake.
The first thing we must consider is this. What is important to know? If we looked at the media as an example (imagine a later civilisation digging up our ruins) we would think that who's dating whom (or breaking up with whom) is worth knowing. Everything about celebrities (whether these are people who should be celebrated, as the word origin tells us, is up for debate) is pertinent. We can then turn to the internet, where we find porn, conspiracy theories, hate sites and other random things. Out of the millions of sites that exist, which is the most important site? (In the beginning there was Google, and the word was with Google, and the word was Google). Then we can look at books. What should one read? Preferences aside, does a Harlequin novel have the same standing as a philosophy text? What about the books on the New York times bestseller list? Or (and I shudder to think of it), the latest popular novel that is so incredibly deep? (How a novel that the masses consider intelligent can ever be so is beyond me).
Finally, if we do decide amongst the multitude of knowledge that exists which is even worthy of our consideration, we must then decide what is true. Truth (and we must capitalise it, as we do with other important words), is elusive. Certainly I think we wouldn't know what to do with it when we caught it. Again, we act as though one particular group has a monopoly on truth and that is all there is. There is never talk of many truths, and with good reason, as stated in a previous post discussing cultural relativism. Not every belief can be valid, otherwise some beliefs would then be invalid. But if only some beliefs are valid, then some beliefs are invalid (if you'll excuse the obvious statement for the purposes of logic). So we have a Catch-22. Perhaps there is something out there that trancends logic, without being ridiculous.
"It takes considerable knowledge just to realise the extent of your own ignorance." -Thomas Sowell
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