It was probably 1947 – a very long time ago in any case.

It was my first day in first grade – and my class had ceremoniously paraded from the room for the kindergarten to the first-grade room to mark the moment. We were all asked to sit in a circle on our little chairs – and the teacher picked up a very big book and put it in her lap.

I remember the moment to this day.

I actually don’t know whether it was an encyclopaedia or a dictionary. Probably the latter, because encyclopaedias in those days came in many volumes. In any case, she said:

“I really want you to understand this as you go through school…. Never feel that you need to know everything – you just need to know how to find things out.”

It was only a very ordinary neighbourhood public school in Washington, D.C. But what wisdom was passed on in that simple statement!

It has stood me in good stead for the many years since that time.

Memory

I didn’t know it then, but I have a terrible memory. I always did. I could never remember dates in history or where all the countries were in South America. I couldn’t remember formulas in science.

Even now, I sometimes can’t always remember my multiplication tables. Or how to add 28 and 15.

As we know, this all gets much worse as we grow older. But I am talking about all my life. It was never a plus in school or out.

But I always aimed to know how to find out.

Research

For years and years, as we all know, it was darned difficult to find what you needed or wanted to know. There was no easy solution.

My parents had an old multi-volume Encyclopaedia Britannica, which always looked musty and uninviting, so I am not sure I used that as much as I could – or should – have.

But, somehow, I did generally work out a way to find out what I wanted to know. I knew which kids knew what sort of information. My older brother, with an excellent memory, was a useful source of help. He still is.

Books with indexes were wonderful. I became very familiar with the dictionary, to check my spelling or the meaning of words. I acquired a thesaurus early on to check on synonyms for my writing.

You could phone places up. Remember “let your fingers do the walking” as an ad for the Yellow Pages telephone directory? That was incredibly useful. Young people nowadays don’t even know what the Yellow Pages were!

Google

And then the computer got invented, followed by the Internet, and everything changed. I can remember getting my first Mac computer in 1985 and what a difference it made to my ability to write.

But much more importantly for ‘finding out’, the invention of the Internet and search engines really revolutionised my life.

Google became my constant friend. You can find out anything there. Where is the nearest place to get shoes mended? Ask Google. Who was the lead actor in a film from the 1940s? Ask Google (or go directly to IMDB). What other roles did he play? Same again.

How do you spell encyclopaedia? When was that Yellow Pages slogan invented? Yup, you guessed it. I checked both of these just now but decided you didn’t need the date.

Lucky Generation

We are really the first generation to have this tool at our fingertips. How lucky we are. We really don’t need to know anything at all.

We just need to have access to Google and we can find out.

Let’s Have a Conversation:  

Do you use Google (or some other search engine) frequently? How did you manage beforehand? Do you think we really don’t need to know anything anymore?