Still

We hire a lot of engineers in Detroit, so I don’t remember which CEO was being interviewed. But it was the mid-90s as I recall, and the Metro area had just seen an influx of engineers and mid-level managers from Korea. So the question was simple: Why?

The CEO paused, and said something like “They see more to the problem, they look longer at the problem, and they go deeper with the problem “.

He had a point, and still does. We tend to be a country in a hurry, where we risk life and limb to text while walking- or, I’m sorry to say, while driving. The milliseconds between the light turning green and the driver honking behind us are legendary.  We put a hot dog in the microwave, hit the 1-minute timer, and either:

1. Cross our arms, tap one foot incessantly, and yell “Hurry” at a dangerously close distance to the front glass
2. Walk away to pay the bills, check email, and replace the toilet paper in the bathroom, making it back just before the timer sounds
3. Open the microwave with 32 seconds still on the timer and say, “Close enough.”

Our schools don’t help much in this regard.  Curricula are focused on learning content, and learning it fast. Teachers ask questions with short answers, and reward the privilege of answering their questions to the student who first shoots their hand in the air like an ICBM. If you ever want to put a fourth-grade class in disarray, go in and say “I need to build a rectangular- shaped pen for my chickens, and I have sixty feet of link fence.  How wide and how long is the rectangle?” The moment they realize there’s more than one answer, their heads will explode.

None of this bodes well for the What If school of thought,  learning that is equal parts content and contemplation. We teach second graders about syllables; other countries hand them poems and ask, what does it mean? Our third graders learn times tables; their third graders learn trigonometry. Our middle- and high school sports teams practice daily. Their teams meet once a week, on Saturdays, to play their games. Weekdays are for much less homework, family time, and daydreaming.

Which takes us back to engineering. The math is the easy part.  Setting up the solution is the tricky part, and that relies on really, really understanding the problem.  That requires an attention span longer than a video game, a sitcom episode, or a TikTok submission.

The quirky sitcom Northern Exposure had an episode where the town had a dance contest. The protagonist of the show practiced like crazy, but lost to an enigmatic couple we never see. When asked why he lost, he says “Their stillness. I’ve never seen a couple dance with such stillness.”

Just like there’s more to dancing than movement, there’s more to learning than speed. Real education reform will start when we start to care about that more than we care about scores on timed tests.

Because the first word in the Dick and Jane reader isn’t Now.

It’s Look.

Night Wait

Did I do enough?
Did I help enough?
Did I love enough?
Did I grow enough?
Is all this wondering taking me
Closer to grace
Farther from grace
Or is this “it’s up to me” outlook
Simply a bad guest
On my guided tour to 2:43
And baggier eyes?

I give no thought to the morrow.
What advice was his
About looking back 
On today?
Something about 
A plough
I think.

Here’s to
The farmers and fishers
In all of us
Looking for fields
And nets
Already white with harvest.

Here’s
To being still.

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