1. Birds and frogs, Mathematician's lament, Time and attention
Introduction
As I embark on a new journey - primarily focused on parenting, family, and education, I'm using this platform to share ideas and learning primarily from things I'm reading, real-life observations, and conversations with friends. I hope to at least broaden your perspective and build an audience of like-minded parents to help accelerate my understanding and learning.
Birds and Frogs
Dyson’s Birds and Frogs essay describes two ways of looking at things:
Birds are characterized by their broad vision and ability to see patterns and connections across different areas. They delight in concepts that unify and bring together diverse problems from various parts of the landscape.
Frogs, in contrast, focus on the details of particular objects and solve problems one at a time. They delight in the intricacies of specific structures and enjoy exploring them in depth.
Dyson emphasizes the importance of both types of thinking in the advancement of science. He argues that both birds and frogs are essential for progress; birds bring creativity and new perspectives, while frogs contribute detailed knowledge and expertise.
I’m reminded of David Epstein’s book, Range, and generalists vs. specialists. Epstein delves into the dichotomy between specialists and generalists across various domains, including sports, business, and education. He argues that the world often promotes specialization but suggests that individuals with diverse interests and experiences (generalists) can often adapt more effectively to complex and unpredictable situations. Epstein highlights the value of a broad skill set, lateral thinking, and the ability to transfer knowledge from one domain to another.
While Dyson's "Birds and Frogs" essay concentrates on the duality of thinking approaches within a field, Epstein's "Range" provides a comprehensive exploration of how generalists can thrive in a specialized world across different domains. Both works contribute valuable insights into the discussion of specialization versus generalization, albeit from different angles and scopes.
My goal is to provide both a high-level overview of ideas but also actionable insights in the sphere of parenting and education.
Mathematician’s Lament
For some reason, the title of this essay prevented me from picking this off my desk for the last few weeks. The essay primarily argues a better way to think about teaching math, but this section on knowing and understanding your child was fantastic:
So how do we teach our students to do mathematics? By choosing engaging and natural problems suitable to their tastes, personalities, and level of experience. By giving them time to make discoveries and formulate conjectures. By helping them to refine their arguments and creating an atmosphere of healthy and vibrant mathematical criticism. By being flexible and open to sudden changes in direction to which their curiosity may lead. In short, by having an honest intellectual relationship with our students and our subject. Of course what I’m suggesting is impossible for a number of reasons. Even putting aside the fact that statewide curricula and standardized tests virtually eliminate teacher autonomy, I doubt that most teachers even want to have such an intense relationship with their students. It requires too much vulnerability and too much responsibility— in short, it’s too much work!
As we think about what education means to us, we’re placing a high value on knowing our kids and being able to create flexibility in deeply exploring things they’re curious about. The flip side of knowing your kid is knowing thyself - strengths, weaknesses, etc. The earlier you figure out who you are and how you operate, the more effective you’ll be.
Time and Attention
Time > money and attention > time.
Level 1: carving out time for the things that matter to you (Keith Rabois, General Partners at Founders Fund, has a great framework - the calendar audit to help with this):
Yes, it is a rare skill to leverage time effectively. Most people systematically undervalue their time, but the most important resource you have in your life is actually your time. In fact, time is one of the scarcest resources you have, because it can’t be replenished like most other resources. To properly use your time is the most effective way to lead you to success.
If you take people with similar backgrounds and skill sets and compare their life trajectories, you will often see a divergence in their chances of success, both in terms of their careers and personal lives. The number one variable that explains this difference has always been their instinct to leverage their time and their ability to apply their time to various important things in their lives.
I am quite ruthless about it: I gauge people this way; I judge my friends this way. Some people made a joke last year that they could use this criterion to guess who would get my birthday party’s invite, and they were mostly right. As my friends know, I am pretty disciplined about time management: I always try to look for new tactics and new methods to better manage my time.
One of the things I do with executives I coach and mentor is a calendar audit. I will ask them to go to a whiteboard and write down their top three priorities. Next I will let them log into their calendar, and we will analyze how they spent the last few months of their time. Finally, we will map the way they spent their time against what they said their priorities are. It almost never maps. There is always some divergence. But they can use this technique to identify misalignment and spend time on more important things in the future.
Level 2: In a world of abundant distraction, the quality and direction of our attention become even more valuable than both money and time.
Today’s society is overrun with useless distractions that misdirect your attention—life is filled with focus being wasted on the trivial and unimportant. If you let them, these distractions will sap your mental and even physical energy. They will exhaust you by chasing what amounts to sugar highs. You become what you focus on.