Somewhat Puzzled

I enjoy doing puzzles and solving problems. This is somewhat the heart of being an engineer - you seek problems and you look to find a solution. Having been in education for over 20 years I can also say with some authoirty that we do a pretty good job of teaching students to also solve problems. There is something however, that we do not teach. To answer the question to what this is - I must first give some background.

In the engineering disicipline most problems are solved by an engineering method, basically you follow a prescribed series of steps that will eventually lead you to a solution. A true understanding of the basic scientific principles behind these steps is not necessary to successfully solve the problem. Sure, it helps - but the majority of engineering students solve problems by first finding a similar problem and emulating the logic that leads to the solution.

So what happens when these students are confronted with problems that fall outside of their frame of reference, problems that they do not have an example to follow. The best way to find out of course is to simply give a group of problems that require the students to move outside of their current thought processes, and I often do just this to groups of my students.

Reactions to this type of experience vary greatly. Some students quickly lose interest and cannot wait for the session to end, others embrace the chance to solve something new and work tirelessly to come up with a solution. What the students do not see is what I am looking for. I am looking to see who will think outside the limits of what has been taught( or should I say schooled) into them in over 16 years of relentless education, creativity and risk.

Great discoveries are often made by mistake, but why? In the case of a discovery - was not the information needed for the discovery always there? A well-educated and prepared mind will immediately see the potential in something that is stumbled upon. Add that element called creativity to the mind and you will find that the discovery was not an accident after all.

So where is the point, in all this education we still are missing a few things. We want to teach love of learning, and proper problem solving methods, but we also end up cutting off the students greatest mental capabilities. For those readers who see the puzzle here, congratulations. I make no pretense for having the solution, but sometimes being puzzled is the answer.