when i was in second grade my teacher asked the class, âwhat weighs more - a thousand pounds of rocks or a thousand pound of feathers?â
he asked everyone who thought that a thousand pounds of rocks to raise their hands
then he asked everyone who thought that a thousand pounds of feathers raised more to raise their hands
there was this kid, kyle, who didnât raise his hand for either. i remember looking at kyle in confusion, because he always participated during math, and the teacher asked him, âwhy didnât you raise your hand?âÂ
and he answered, âneither is heavier. they weigh they same - theyâre both a thousand pounds.âÂ
the teacher goes âexactly! the rest of you werenât actively thinking about the question.âÂ
when i was in the second year of my first adult job after college, we did a series team building exercise with my whole department and they were conducted by this outside consultant that did this for a living.Â
she put us into two groups and gave each group a different colored bag of puzzle pieces and put us on opposite sides of the room and started the timer. we were racing to complete the puzzle first, but we realized we were missing several pieces and had pieces we couldnât make fit. the other group realized the same and it turns out we had to swap pieces to complete our puzzles, or work together, as she put it.Â
âi never told you that you couldnât work together,â she said smugly. âyou decided that because you were in different groups, that meant you were competing.âÂ
and i was seven years old again, being trickedÂ
i understand what these people were trying to do. but.Â
my teacher asks me a question giving me two options. why would i assume thereâs a third? shouldnât i trust my teacher if he tells me that there are two options, that one of them is correct? in any other situation, going âneitherâ to a question would be considered backtalk, and get you in trouble
we did not naturally come from two different groups and refuse to work together - we were put there, artificially, and then given a task that we had no reason to believe we needed to do together. and then when we saw there was a need, we did! what was proven here, exactly?
if you set someone up to fail, and then they do, considering that failure a commentary on the human condition is just self serving
these instances teach important lessons, but not necessarily the ones i think they wanted to
make sure youâre not being set up for failure by people who have a vested interest in that failureÂ
âactive readingâ and âworking togetherâ are fine enough lessons, i guess, but the most important one is this:
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