The Puzzle

Things taught in school but I never really understood:

Schools are challenging, I'm sure it will always be, … especially for teachers. As a student, I guess you largely try to keep it moving to next level. Now when I look back, after almost 20 + years of schooling and still counting, I recall several things which were taught in school but I never really understood quite well. In fact, it hasn't been too long since I began to realize that at times knowing mere facts about something can be overtly illusionary as actual understanding of the core concepts we are attempting to unveil.   

Richard Feynman, an American physicist, puts it quite well in his interview with BBC in 1981, popularly titled as ' The pleasure of finding things out'. He talks about how knowing what a crow is called in different languages doesn't mean we know a lot about crows. Rather it reflects our linguistic ability to a certain extent. Also, he highlights the importance of distinguishing what we do not understand. Feynman illustrates this with an example of how 'inertia' defines a property of an object at rest or motion but says nothing about why that happens. Acknowledging ignorance unlocks the opportunity to explore, learn and expand our intellectual horizon. Or at least, it keeps us grounded.

Talking about things from school I fail to comprehend. Well, the list seem to be endless. The biggest buggers I can recall now are, nonetheless, chemical formula for molecules/ compounds, nerve action potential, voltage, and mathematics vaguely. Anytime an alphabet showed up in math, I would be baffled. Simple arithmetic did make some sense but algebra and trigonometry were too abstract for me. As if it wasn't already bad enough, matrix, calculus and imaginary numbers were gradually introduced to core curricula. There used to be a separate class with series of lectures exclusively dedicated to right-angled triangles. Sin, cos, tan, cot and their laws were used to answer questions on innumerable arbitrary triangles. The ring formula of benzene as well as chemical structure for several other molecules/ compounds were grueling. It was ridiculously difficult for me to accept that chemicals existed in the way their structures were taught to us. 

Back in those days, for many, curiosity was domesticated within boundaries, usually determined by what our teachers or parents knew, restrained by what our books had to offer. The world is very different today,  with the advent of information technology and widespread use of internet, accessibility of knowledge is enormous. I was glad to find out recently that the cyclic nature of benzene was actually confirmed by a crystallographer named Kathleen Lonsdale in 1929.  And we know how neurotransmitters as well as change in voltage across axon membrane helps transmit nerve impulses. I also learned that neuroscience is way more complicated than the basic physiology of action potential. Frontline neuroscientists still struggle to fully grasp how memory is formed or retrieved. It's good to know this. Clear demarcation of information and innocence can be empowering, especially if the ignorance is shared by entire humanity. 

Modern day teachers bestow the biggest responsibility to encourage kids to push the limits of critical examination further and further. In addition to being grateful to everything that civilization has granted us, it will inspire us to learn more, making the world even better place, bit by bit.