If heat rises, why is it colder at the top of mountains?

This blog will not answer the title question, but answer a much more relevant question: how and why should we hunt knowledge every day. It is inspired by my son, who asked the question and James S Bach’s “Secrets of a Buccaneer Scholar”.

First, about my son, then about James Bach. At six, my son loves science. Every time he asks questions like “why is the sky blue?” and “how long would it take to drive to the moon”, my wife and I dig into the answer with gusto. He loves math for much the same reason. We revel in his curiosity and encourage it. I have learned a lot teaching him.

Now, about James Bach. I found his book while looking for books about Software Testing. While James Bach also writes books about software testing, this book was about learning. It describes how, after dropping out of school with only an 8th grade diploma, he learned Assembly Language Programming, became a software tester, and now consults other software testers. It was his habit of self-education that gave him the edge over his college educated competition.

I’ll elaborate on just a few of his “great secrets”.

To learn something, it should be relevant. He calls these Authentic Problems. While I’ve studied several foreign languages in school, the 2-3 that I speak well I learned while living abroad, and are not the languages I learned in school. Likewise with software. The most useful software knowledge that I’ve gained has been because I needed the knowledge at work to solve a problem. I take the problem home and beat it into submission.

Cognitive Savvy. You have to understand how you learn. Everyone will learn differently. I learn well by processing things in multiples ways. For example, this blog entry will be my Toastmaster’s speech Tuesday. I know that I often fragment ideas as I restructure on the fly, so I videotaped myself reading it to ensure it flowed well.

Other minds. Woodrow Wilson said, “I not only use all the brains that I have, but all that I can borrow.” Bach refers to hunting knowledge in packs. I refuse to work alone because I want the ability to come up with crazy ideas. Some will be brilliant, some will be chaff. Other minds attacking my ideas allow me to be brilliant.

I will conclude by how I answered my son’s query: I dove in and made up a plausible answer on the spot. Diving in is always the first step across a river. Perhaps I could have solved it on my own, but I thought it would be more fun to hunt down the answer with my pack of friends and relatives. The most amusing answer was, “Because you’re further away from hell.” The most thorough and correct answer came from my brother, who has climbed all of the 14ers in Colorado. This was a very authentic problem for him. Now that I know the answer, I’m trying to understand it well enough to explain it to my six year old son. Finding the answer was a great hunt.

How I am voting in the 2010 November election.

No, silly, I am not going to tell you what candidates I choose and what position I take on ballot measures, but I will tell you my methodology. In elections, as in all else, “It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so.” (Mark Twain). More money is spent convincing you of things that just ain’t so than in almost any other choice you make. If the electorate abided by the principals that jurors use in the justice system – we’d all need to be excused.

Step 1: Avoid learning things that just ain’t so. It's much easier than unlearning them. I abandoned television news several years ago and have never been better informed. Or, at least, less misinformed.

Step 2: Don’t start looking at issues and candidates until your voters guide arrives. It really shouldn’t take more than a few weeks to make an informed decision. Often, I can take a stand from the statements in the voters guide alone (see Step 3!). The massive amount of money spent in campaigns infuriates me. Ignoring it all gives me the satisfaction of wasting the money of the interest groups. It’s my statement that I’d like to see campaign season reduced to a two week period.

Step 3: For each issue, list what what you have heard before you opened the voters guide. In all likelihood, it just ain’t so. 30 second commercials and slogans on yard signs can’t articulate anything in depth. The format requires misinformation.

Step 4: Establish reliable – or at least honest -- sources of information for issues that you need more information on. Check out fact checking sites such as http://politifact.com to appreciate just how difficult this is. I look for endorsements from groups that are thoughtful and honest about their biases; that tell me why they are endorsing an issue. Even if I disagree with them, I’ve got a clearer picture. This is especially important for complex ballot measures.

Grammatical and rhetorical corrections are welcome.