BOB HARDEN, GGUSD Board of Education vice president, speaks to students at La Quinta graduation. At left (in red) is Principal Amy Avina (Tribune photo).

It All Adds Up Dept. I was delighted to hear Bob Harden’s remarks at the La Quinta High School commencement ceremonies at Bolsa Stadium on Wednesday.

Harden, the longest-serving member of the Garden Grove Unified School District Board of Education, said that – like countless high school students before him – he had been told that much of what he learned in high school would stand him in good stead in later life.

But, he told the students, he actually remembers next to nothing of the mathematical equations or chemical formulas he had to study in those four years and that was OK with him.

What he did learn was critical thinking. The process of evaluating and understanding the choices, problems, challenges of life.

The ability to determine truth from a lie, the just from the unjust, the faithful from the faithless, the promising from the dumb-as-a-barrel of hair business opportunities.

Also known as “street-smarts,” critical thinking seems to lag far behind the classic subjects of reading, writing and arithmetic in curriculums since at least when Moses was in middle school.

But that’s not the education system’s fault. The capital of Kansas is provably Topeka; the right choices in life are capable of a thousand different viewpoints.

Still, it was nice to hear a respected education official put it all in context. Education itself can only take you so far. You’ve got to do most of the heavy lifting – and thinking – on your own.