Cobwebs and Cognizance
With my eldest at an age where her maths is starting to go beyond simple calculus, I am now occasionally (as a last resort, I believe) asked to help her out. This means clearing some cobwebs and dusting-off long-closed and abandoned ‘chests of knowledge’. So far I can manage with a wave of the hands and a sneeze but I am dreading the day (which will no-doubt come) when the cobwebs look and feel like something out of Shelob’s* lair, filled with the remains of my own failures to understand.
What is my point? For starters, a solid foundation is invaluable. It surprised me that, after prying open the lids, I still understand the Maths, even if I haven’t used it in a very long time and was taught in a very different way. And I was even able to spot a (too) large number of errors in her book. Score: 1 for JO; 0 for new Maths.
The other point comes from her question: “What do you actually use this for? You are an engineer; do you ever use this?†A question I found hard to answer because, in reality, most of the engineers and I rarely, if ever, use the basic formulae she is learning. But I have written before about the value of understanding the basics and of addressing (not so) stupid questions.
What did strike me after a while was that I actually ‘understood’ the formulae, rather than just ‘juggling the numbers’ as I believe I did during my time in school. I am sure that quite a few of my peers understood the relevance and meaning of the Maths way back then, but I am also sure that for many, like me, it was just a numbers game.
Cue marine design.
During the past few years, I have been surprised by the designs produced by some engineers. Sometimes they were not technically wrong but not particularly user-friendly. Other times they were actually incorrect and based on an incorrect understanding of the subject. The ‘numbers’ were, however, run correctly.
Like the Maths mentioned above, some engineers understand things immediately and fast; others run the models and numbers, often quite well, but seem to lack an understanding of the underlying assumptions. I believe this is one of the differences between being an ‘engineer’ and a ‘designer’. This is the moral of this story.
I am sure I have done things that my team-mates roll their eyes. Everyone has to learn, after all. As a teacher, father and now ‘senior colleague’, we have an obligation to try and not just teach our students, kids or colleagues ‘monkey tricks’ but help them understand the background, reasons and applications.
Why this way?
Some of this understanding will only come with time and experience, but I do believe that at least part of it can be taught, if explained well.
I’ll go back and help both my daughter and others see that ‘filling in the numbers’ is just part of the work. The other part is to understand why this needs to be done and how they as well as others will benefit from the results.
*The giant spider in Lord of the Rings books that fed indiscriminately on men, elves, orcs and of course, hobbits.