Tag Archives: wisdom

Teaching wisdom

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We all know that one person who didn’t do well in school and isn’t ‘book smart’ but if there is a problem to solve he or she will figure it out. Or someone who’s a tinkerer, who dabbles in fixing anything from a small electric toy to a car engine… maybe they were good at school, maybe not, but they solve problems we would struggle with. This isn’t traditionally the kind of wisdom taught in schools. It’s born out of curiosity and ingenuity.

How can we make learning at school more like this? More like the problem solvers we are going to need. We aren’t going to out book smart AI. We aren’t going to write reports as well as a smartly prompted AI. But even a good AI isn’t going to figure out why a sink suddenly has low pressure any time soon.

Maybe that will come, but for now we are going to be able to out problem solve AI or at least be the ones that figure out what to ask AI to help us out.

So how do we maximize the learning at school to provide students with the kind of wisdom they need to be resourceful in an AI filled world? It won’t be with wrote memorization. It won’t be the review tests. It won’t be the book reports or the 15 math questions going home for homework.

What kind of learning experiences are we creating at school? Do they foster wisdom, systems thinking, and/or problem solving? Are we getting students excited about being learners and problem solvers? Are we creating environments for creators or compliant workers? Because the path of AI and robotics is quickly making compliant workers redundant.

I don’t know if we can explicitly teach wisdom, but we can create experiences where wisdom is valued and the right answer isn’t predetermined. We can design problems that require collaboration, creativity, and insight. And we can teach students to harness AI so that it serves us and we add value to what it can do with us.

Creating unique and challenging learning experiences, with students helping us design these experiences or even designing them themselves…. This is the path forward for schools. If a student spends the day only doing things AI can do better than them, what’s school really teaching?

Put your own oxygen mask on first

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Arianna Huffington is 74 years old and she just recently started a new AI business. She started the Huffington Post at age 55 and sold it 6 years later for 315 million dollars. In this The Diary of a CEO podcast interview with Steven Bartlett she shares this gem of a story.

The moral of the story is simple: Leaders need to take care of themselves, and get enough sleep, in order to be at their best. She says, “All the science now makes it very clear that when we are depleted we are going to make bad decisions.”

Then quoting Jeff Bezos, “I sleep 8 hours a night… I’m judged by the quality of my decisions, not the quantity of my decisions.”

As the new school year begins, take this as a reminder to take care of yourself first, if you really want to take care of your staff and students. It’s not good enough to only exercise, and eat well, and get enough sleep when you are not busy. You owe it to yourself, those you serve, and your job, to treat yourself well. It’s not selfish to put on your oxygen mask first, it’s how you get enough air to take care of others.

Build good habits and take the time to care for yourself first, when you are busiest, and it will become very easy to do so all the time. You will benefit as a person, as a friend, as a partner, as a parent, as an employee, and as a leader. It starts with you taking care of you.

Reflections of the past

I noticed it just as I was hitting ‘send’. My daughter had sent a Snapchat from a cottage she was leaving, a quick note to her family to say that she enjoyed her little getaway. I sent a response photo, a quick selfie as a replay with a comment like, ‘Hope you had fun’ written over the image. I didn’t pose. I didn’t concern myself with how I looked. It was only a quick picture going to my family, and so I just clicked the photo, wrote the text, and sent the image off to the group chat… knowing that it would disappear just after my family saw it. That’s the thing about Snapchat, unless one of my family saved the image in the chat, it would be gone after they look at it.

Except, for a split second before I hit the send button I saw something I didn’t expect. I saw a reflection of my grandfather in the image of myself. This was unusual, because I don’t really look like him. Sure, I often see reflections of my dad in my own reflection, we have similar traits and they seem to converge as I age, but I don’t have a lot of similar features to my grandfather, my mother’s dad.

I’d only seen this once before, years ago, and again on Snapchat. I used the aging filter and for the first time ever I saw a resemblance to my grandfather when I added about 25 years to my current age. But this time there was no filter, no gimmick, just a quick, unposed image of myself and a peek of my grandfather looking back at me.

It has been almost a quarter of a century since my grandfather passed away. Just over 38 years since the other one passed. That amazes me, because some of the memories of them still feel close. A friend recently shared this about aging, “The days seem longer, and the years seem shorter.” This resonates with me. A day seems to last about a day long, it doesn’t fly by, but the years have. My reflection in the mirror is somehow older than it should be. The man looking back has seen more years than I expect him to see.

It was just a quick glimpse of my own reflection, but one that has me reflecting on how quickly time passes. One that has me appreciating those who have been part of my life, and are gone, as well as those who are here with me now. The years are short, but they are lengthened by the memories we form, the moments that are not just ordinary. If we don’t make efforts to connect with others and create special moments, then those moments are nothing more than Snapchat memories… gone moments after we look at them.

Changing Our Opinions…

I recently wrote Certainty Versus Evidence, and concluded with, “Seek out wise people who are smart enough to be humble, and uncertain, and as curious as you are… And don’t let yourself get stuck in concrete thinking.”

It really comes down to the idea that we need to be willing to change our opinions and our point of view when more information comes our way.

This means:

  • We need to respectfully listen to alternative points of view.
  • We need to ask clarifying questions.
  • We need to challenge our own assumptions.
  • We need to be humble enough to recognize that we don’t know everything.
  • We need to keep learning.

It always surprises me the that changing of one’s opinion is seen as weak. To me it’s a sign of strength. Openly admitting that you’ve changed your mind based on new evidence is a superpower. It means you don’t have a fixed mindset.

The difference between this and being gullible is that you aren’t easily persuaded, but rather data driven. You aren’t blindly believing new information, you are discerning, measuring, calculating, and being inquisitive.

We aren’t having our minds changed, we are changing our minds.

It’s not hard to do this when your new opinion fits with the views of those around you, but if that’s not the case, a simple change of opinion could be very challenging. I think both Copernicus and Galileo would agree with me.

It’s a big step to openly change your mind on a challenging topic. It takes strength of mind and will to do so, and it is a sign that you are willing to learn and grow. Certainty is the enemy of understanding, compassion, and growth. Ultimately if we are willing to change our opinions, we are willing to change and grow.

Certainty Versus Evidence

We are living through an epidemic of certainly at the expense of evidence.

Selectively chosen facts are sprinkled on emboldened ideas that sit like concrete, embedded deep in the minds of people who are certain they are right. Contrary evidence is tossed aside. If it doesn’t fit my truth or my world view then, it’s wrong, it’s misinterpreted, it’s fake news.

When scientists discover galaxies that are too large for the age that they are, considering when they were born, early in the development of the universe… it makes them ponder the theories they hold. Scientists are excited by this puzzle. What’s at play here? Is it a challenge of our evidence collection or are there other theories that may be better? This is the thrill of being at the forefront of science. It’s the idea that we continue to learn and reformulate our theories and make them better.

But to certainty focused, evidence lacking, non-scientific ‘experts’ (in their own minds), this new data is a chance to mock scientists; To emphasize that ‘they don’t know anything’ about the universe. This new evidence isn’t scientific evidence but rather proof that all science is wrong. These new galaxies are evidence of a higher power, or worse, a flat world.

We have people selling water bottles that make hydrogen water that’s somehow supposed to be better than just drinking water. Every commercial for supplements or diets or exercise plans tell you how the evidence is clear and this is the product that will transform your life.

I recently saw this fascinating video about a bug that shoots acid from its butt as a defensive mechanism. It was a totally interesting and engaging video for over 2 minutes, then it started into an unexpected conclusion of Intelligent Design and became an anti-evolution propaganda video that I had to stop watching. But I did wonder how many people bought into this, and I peeked at the comments which were filled with comments like, ‘God is amazing’.

‘Follow your own Truth’, with a capital ‘T’. Cherry pick your evidence and strengthen your certainty. That’s what it seems more and more people are doing these days. The certainty epidemic is growing and it’s getting harder and harder to sift through the BS, and actually know what evidence to follow.

The only anecdote is to stay curious and ask questions. Seek out wise people who are smart enough to be humble, and uncertain, and as curious as you are… And don’t let yourself get stuck in concrete thinking.

Ancient Wisdom

Watch this video about tomorrow’s solar eclipse.

@welchlabs

How rare is the April 2024 #eclipse?

♬ original sound – Welch Labs

Predicting the next total eclipse is not a simple math problem, having several independent factors. Yet as the video mentions, an ancient Babylonian tablet tracked all the solar eclipses from 347 to 258 BCE.

It makes me wonder about the wisdom of some ancient civilizations. What did they know, that has been lost to us? From medicines to space to science, what intelligence was previously discovered and has since needed to be rediscovered, relearned.

And what did the ancients know that we still don’t know?

Smart and wrong

I didn’t track where on social media I saw this, and so I can’t give credit where credit is due, but I wanted to share.

It was a video of woman sharing a discussion with her husband after she said something like, “I thought I was smart, how did I not know…”

And her husband said, “You are smart…”And then he went on to define smart in a way that she’d never thought of:

A smart person is wise enough to know when they are wrong and will change their mind.

What a great definition! I think that too many people take opposing views as if they are dichotomies, and don’t realize that different views are on a spectrum. As such you can move your views (or have your views changed by good arguments) and that doesn’t mean your whole identity is now different.

Smart people recognize when they are wrong, change their mind, and move on. It’s not a polarizing thing, it’s actually a wise thing to do. If you find that you are always right, are you learning anything new? How smart are you?

(Don’t answer that unless you are willing to change your mind.)😜

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Update 9:36pm: Just came by this and had to add it to the post:

Idiots, cruelty, and kindness

Sometimes I hear something and I think, ‘I wish I said that’. This video ends that way. It doesn’t start that way, I almost stopped listening, but I’m glad I waited past the comedy to get to the real message.

“Empathy and compassion are evolved states of being.”

And so,

“…the kindest person in the room is often the smartest.”

Prove your intelligence. Be kind.

The enemy of knowledge

“The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge.” ~ Stephen Hawking

The illusion of knowledge is more ignorant that just being ignorant. This idea is more relevant today than any time in history. Examples:

1. Every religion starts with the premise that their religion shares true knowledge and all the other religions share illusions. So every devout religious person loves their own illusions, or at the very least believes anyone of a different faith lives in an illusion of ignorance.

2. Anyone who believes in a flat earth, or thinks no one ever landed on the moon lives in an illusion of knowledge. They perceive themselves as more knowledgeable than scientists, experts, and even general employees in the flight and space industry.

3. AI is already generating incredibly persuasive deep fakes and while we used to use a discerning eye to catch a lie, soon we will need to be more discerning to catch the truth. The illusion of knowledge will be more rampant than actual, factual knowledge.

We are moving from an era of knowledge seekers to an era of illusions and ignorance.

The truth is out there… it’s just a lot harder to find, and even harder to defend.

That’s a Nope for Me

I was at a dinner meeting and one of the group rode up in an electric unicycle, ‘a self-balancing personal transporter with a single wheel’. It looks like a lot of fun. A younger me would have loved to hop on it and give it a try… but that’s not me anymore.

I love adventure, I love trying new things, but I also like going to bed without being in agony. I enjoy when my back feels the same age as me and not like it’s 20 years older. And I know that one minor fall from an electric unicycle can launch me into a world of pain.

It’s not about lack of wanting to try, it’s self-preservation. I’ve learned (usually the hard way) that some activities have an expiry date on them. It’s not based on how old the activity is, it’s based on how old I am… And an electric unicycle’s expiry date went off about a decade ago. That’s a nope for me.