At the risk of being logical and empathetic, I offer my plan for the best teaching and parenting. I call it The Bob Plan.

Dear Everyone:

Learn everything. All of it. Memorize the multiplication and periodic tables, memorize the dictionary, the standard one, of course, but also the Slang Dictionary, and the Urban one, the Rural, the Southern, and the New England Elitist one. Know how to talk to everyone; know what everyone is saying. In that vein learn French and Spanish. Find yourself fluent in Arabic and Mandarin, Farsi and all other ways in which others speak. Know sign language. Study the click languages.

Read the history of the world by writers in the United States, China, Russia, Ethiopia, and the Vatican. Know the sacred texts as well as you know your phone texts. Read the Torah in Hebrew and the Bible in Greek. Know the differences between the New Standard Bible and the King James Version and talk about it with friends after reciting the Koran. Know the Pali Cannon.

Why would any teacher, parent, civic leader, country leader, anyone not want their own people to know more than others? Why would anyone want to send their children/students/citizens into battle without at least as much knowledge as those they might face? It is a supreme derelict of duties to march our young into the world half-dressed, but there are some who believe to send those same humans into school, the workplace, the world arena, with only a portion of the material everyone else might have, makes sense. But it is not only neglect, it is criminal. If our students, children, citizens, can have the answers to life’s questions which might be put to them at the most inopportune time, what sane-thinking person would deny them that information?

Know the laws, all of them—the local dictates and the constitutional arguments. Say whatever you want to say about the ideas of those you disagree with and know the amendment which allows you to do so without interference. Know the statutes and precedents, know the case names and dates and understand their practical application.

Understand every sexual preference, position, and disease. Be able to converse with the unlicensed prostitute and the Surgeon General at the same table with equal respect and knowledge. Understand the schedules to the subway system and the history behind the Great Migration in the 1930’s. Be able to discuss the effects of slavery on the industrial stagnancy of the sub-Sahel as well as the disenfranchisement of your neighbors two streets away. Be able to predict the weather and prevent heart attacks. Know CPR and how to use a defibrillator.

What would happen if everyone in a society turned out to be the smartest person in the room?

How could that hurt anything or anyone?

Arguments would be tight and based upon verifiable evidence gathered cautiously and patiently. Accuracy would be a given, sources would be well vetted, and mutual respect would engulf the debate.

Know the value of diplomacy and the value of gardening. Understand short- and long-term investments, the advantages and dangers of credit, and the National Highway numbering system. Know how to use a slide rule and AI. Know how to spot any constellation at a glance and the species of every bird just by hearing its call.

Who would have a problem with all of this knowledge except someone who, by keeping the public ignorant, can take advantage of them? There is no other value of ignorance. None.

Learn to make an omelet and a whiskey sour. Learn to pick up after yourself and how to greet a stranger. Learn to say “thank you” and “you’re welcome.”

Know seventh grade Social Studies as well as eleventh grade English. Memorize the twenty-seven amendments to the constitution and read Dickens, Dickenson, and Stephen King. Read Flaubert in French and Dostoevsky in Russian. Kafka in German. Watch Citizen Kane and Fifty Shades of Grey. Read and watch and listen to it all. All of it. The entire everything.

Learn how to learn; observe, ingest, swallow. Learn diplomacy and humor, learn nuance and grandeur. Recognize hyperbole and subtle inflections. All of it. Understand how to fix a car, build a rabbit pen, and stack wood. Learn the proper methods to painting a room and the best way to get red wine stains out of a white carpet.

Why would anyone want their citizens to be less knowledgeable than others? It makes no sense. Study with the people of your community and those from small villages in other hemispheres. Find out what they know, share what you’ve got. Remember their names and learn their customs. Knowledge guarantees inclusion and diversity. Those who learn not only have the answers, they know how to find new answers, decipher fact from falsehood.

Be smarter than AI, more efficient than algorithms, more fluent than the translators. Be a step ahead.

No one should want someone they care about or are responsible for to be less prepared than anyone else.

Choose your own path based upon ambition instead of statistics, your own pronoun based upon preference not ordinance, your own partner based upon love not gender. Understand why that makes sense. Learn how to show others that makes sense.

Find out why we’re still talking about Mozart three hundred years later. Find out what happened at the Second Continental Congress, what did Henry Highland Garnett and WEB Dubois know? Read the slave narratives, read all of Shakespeare. Learn how to gamble; learn how to smuggle. Try the haggis. Taste the raw fish. Find out.

Everything. Learn absolutely everything. It is the only course of action you should want so you can navigate this world on your own terms with all the information necessary; and it should be the only logical ambition all true leaders should desire for their citizens.