So we get things like Gutenberg invented the Bible, Rumania is the capital of Alabama, Sir Walter Raleigh invented cigarettes, and Karl Marx was one of the Marx Brothers. 

Now just how important is it that high-school kids store in their memory that Johannes Gutenberg didn't invent the Bible but printed a piece of it some five hundred years ago using movable type? Or that Sir Walter Raleigh's connection with cigarettes was not that he invented them but that he helped popularize the use of tobacco which then led to their invention? Or that, well . . .  You get the idea. 

You know, I don't think it's important at all. I think it's much more important these days to teach students in the classroom the things that they should be getting at home but apparently are not. You know, things such as civility, compassion,  honesty, and reliability. 

I say that because I'm convinced that learning how to behave properly will get you much further in life, both business and personal, than having at your fingertips the information that Rumania is a country in Europe and not the capital of Alabama. Or that Karl Marx was a writer who lived about 150 years ago and not one of the Marx Brothers. 

You know, come to think of it, there's an old Jewish proverb that love is better than bread. But that you can't beat the combination of love and bread. 

I guess it would be the same thing here. Civility, compassion, honesty, and reliability are better than facts. But you can't beat the combination of civility, compassion, honesty, reliability, and facts. 

Think about it.