An engineering student came up to present his functional model to the class. The assignment called for students to concisely model a trade-off they saw in a design problem of their choice. The student projected his model and began to explain it: “So, I dumbed it down, and…”
I paused him there.
Why would someone make such as statement? To say “I dumbed it down” is an attempt to gain “status,” either by lowering the audience’s status or the status of the instructor. If lowering the audience’s status, it translates as, “you’re not quite up to this, so here’s the oversimplified version for you.” If lowering the instructor’s status, it translates as, “the technique I’m being asked to use is not a very capable one, so I’ll have to oversimplify my problem to employ the technique.”
When the student continued his presentation, it became apparent that he didn’t yet understand the implications of his modeling choices. The model contradicted itself and wasn’t the straightforward expression the student thought it was. The student may have felt unsure about his work, not necessarily consciously, and the insecurity that aroused may have prompted him to try to elevate his own status by lowering the that of the audience or instructor.
When our thinking about a problem isn’t yet clear, it’s not yet possible to generate a coherent model. But if we are able to look at a model we have just put down on paper and notice that it is not coherent, we can ask questions that will help us clarify our thinking, leading us to draft a new version of the model. This iterative modeling process is really a thinking technique. We model, not to broadcast our conclusions, but to help ourselves think.
So a helpful approach, for a student or indeed for anyone in a learning context, may be to acknowledge that the presentation is provisional, the sharing of an intermediate result. If there is a feeling of being unsure, it does not have to be shunted off into insecurity, leading to a statement of “dumbing it down.” A feeling of doubt, of being unsure, may actually be a good sign, an indication of a readiness to learn.
Having recently been tinkering with coding for the first time in many years, I am reminded how there are different reasons for something not to work. I start out on a project but don’t know how the programming language works or what the computer hardware expects to hear from the program software. Through trial and error, testing hypotheses, and looking online for clues and fragments of instructions or tutorials to piece together, I construct theories and accomplish small tasks that encourage me. Sometimes, I discover, after much work, that I am going about things the right way, but there is a flaw in the software or that the software does not work with the hardware that way its designers hoped or expected it to.
It’s also common to find, upon completing a project, that the result won’t contribute to a larger objective I had. If the point of my work were only to complete the larger objective, it would be fair to say I had been working on the wrong project.
That I keep going–and that I’m not overly concerned–is a good indication that I am playing, that I’m not solely focused on a conventional outcome. When playing, “doing it right” and “doing the right thing” coincide, even though an outcome orientation might suggest they don’t.
We learn different things from following instructions than we do from guessing, experimenting, and observing.
Photo: L.Brumm Photography
We all know that advice is overrated (except our advice to others, which is unheeded). It’s just hard to acquire wisdom through advice-giving.
We also all know the “other person’s shoes” idea, how experiencing something from another point of view can bring insight.
I’m not going to give advice in this post; I’ll just tell a (short) story.
My day job for years has been as an educator. Educators are fond of talking about how a good teacher is always learning. I’ve heard myself say this many times, I believe it, and I thought I was practicing it, too. It’s funny, though, that it was only recently that I signed up to take a course, the first college-level course I’ve enrolled in since 1997.
It’s an art studio course, and wow is it hard work!
Only now do I remember what it feels like to be a student.
The instructor explains something, and I think I understand, but I can’t put it in to practice.
Or: I’m thinking about what she just said, and I realize I’ve just missed the next four things she said.
Or: My classmates easily pick up some techniques I find nearly impossible, and I find other techniques straightforward and see my classmates struggle.
Or: I know I’m there to learn and not for a grade, but I feel the pressure of the imminent grade.
Or: I go through frustration, despair, impatience, perseverance, more despair, and then relief over the course of a single homework assignment.
The class is an extended interaction, more than a survey form or a role-play or an experiment that I set up, control, and evaluate.
Now we’re cooking with gas!