Friday, April 22, 2011
Good Reads
TheatreFace: "I tell my students all the time that I don’t expect them to memorize mathematical formulae, tabulated materials properties, building codes, geometric proofs, or the price of tea in China, because these are all things that they can easily look up with appropriate reference materials; what I want is for them to understand that these formulae, properties, codes, proofs and prices exist, and when they will have an impact on a particular production situation. There’s no value in them racking their brains in a fast-paced production environment trying to remember these things, when their focus and attention might be better spent on addressing a particular problem as a whole, or in keeping a production on task, working with an anxious director, or dealing with any number of the hundreds of things that can go wrong in production in a given week. Keeping a library of reference materials (and a connection to the Internet) handy is a great way to ensure your brain is focused on the things it needs to be focused on, instead of getting mired in things you can simply look up.
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3 comments:
This is a pretty good list of materials to keep on hand for reference. I really appreciate the "life is open book" attitude. It takes a lot of pressure off of memorization and puts an emphasis on true understanding and ability to implement that understanding. I know that I have already put my Structures learning into action, and always have my trusty Structures book handy. I've never been asked to spit out a beam formula from memory, and it's comforting to know that I understand the math and can look up the formulas when I need them.
I certainly appreciate this list and the "life is open book" philosophy too, but I feel like a lot of a manager's job is also memorizing a lot of information so that it can be spit out quickly and efficiently when someone asks. Certainly in an emergency situation, opening up a first aid handbook is not helpful - you need to know what to do, and quickly. That's a little extreme, but even in the sense of negotiation techniques, where sometimes it's difficult to even notice that a negotiation is going on while it's happening, knowing and internalizing the skills is the only way to succeed - no one's going to let you pull out Getting to Yes while talking to them to check a reference. I still do understand why this philosophy would be appropriate for more technical fields - electricians, carpenters, etc, who have a little more time to look something up in a Structures book if necessary. That simply doesn't work, though, for management skills and a lot of health and safety information.
This definitely sounds like the philosophy Kevin Hines is always teaching us. In the real world, you can always looks it up. Even bartenders keep a reference guide behind the bar for when they get those drinks that aren't typically ordered at that bar and they probably don't plan on memorizing that mix unless that person is a regular. It's more important to know they exists, where to find it, and when you may have to use it. The blogger's write that it's easier to stay on task when you are more focused on the task and action at hand, not memorizing codes and formulae for a project you may or may not need in the future. It's only the project right now that matter and what you need to accomplish that.
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