As a sports fan, I'm always coming across transformation stories. One I like in particular is about Novak Djokovic's diet.
Though always among the top players in tennis, in 2010 Djokovic was rarely considered a serious threat for the top spot in the world rankings. This changed when he discovered he was gluten-intolerant. He adjusted his diet according to his needs and almost immediately ascended to #1. He has been the sport's most consistent top player since.
How determined was Djokovic? Not even his family history could hold the man back- Djokovic's parents owned a pizza parlor! The story is used as an example of doing everything it takes to win. I agree with this interpretation to an extent.
But another part of me considers the story depressing (1). Djokovic's job is to think about optimizing tennis performance. This is the only thing he is paid to do! If he took so long to realize how a change in diet would impact his results, what chance do the rest of us working stiffs, sad-sack bloggers, and weekend warriors have? How will I ever understand my own assumptions, challenge my limitations, and find new ways to live up to my potential?
At first glance, I suspect the answer is close to zero.
I'm so pessimistic partly because I recognize how well trained I am to accept everything without question. I reached this conclusion because I could only think back to a small handful of examples from my own education where I made something resembling a Djokovic-style assault on a long-held assumption.
Perhaps the best example comes from a seventh-grade home economics class (2). In a lesson about formal dinner behavior, the teacher stressed the importance of learning to think differently about these meals.
Instead of looking at all the food to eat, focus more on manners and etiquette...
It's not about the food, it's about the host...
The forks go in order from left to right by course...
Don't lick the plate...
I woke up in time to hear the key line. This quote hammered the lesson home for us snot-nosed youngsters and has stayed with me for nearly two decades.
'If you are still hungry, you can always stop at McDonald's on the way home.'
If you are still hungry...McDonald's...what? This was mind blowing stuff for me at the time.
The line represented a number of firsts, including (a) the first time a teacher suggested going to eat fast food was the right idea and (b) the first time I learned people stop eating before being full and (c) the first time I learned I might one day have enough money to afford McDonald's as some sort of extra meal, provided (d) I grew up to become an adult who would consider (b).
But the big one here is (e) this being the first instance I thought about eating in a context outside of a meal or a snack. What category does devouring a twenty piece Chicken McNuggets while wearing a bow tie fall into? Given my unusual eating schedule today, this seems a fairly ridiculous revelation. I guess all things start somewhere.
Until this particular home-ec lesson, I never thought about how I ate. I just ate. How else would I eat? Food to hand, hand to mouth, chew, repeat.
Back then, any deviation from my expectations was an intellectually stimulating event. When I found out junior high lunch started at 10:20am, I was stunned. Wasn't lunch a word for eating at noon? And for a long time, I counted my friends who never ate breakfast among the biggest weirdos I knew (3).
Like most things I thought about without actually thinking about, I think differently about things now. I can't imagine there is any biological benefit to eating meals called breakfast, lunch, or dinner at specific times of the day. When I no longer saw any reason to continue observing this unexplained custom, I stopped (4).
I assume this meal schedule exists entirely for social reasons (though sometimes it is also described as 'healthy'). The idea gets reinforced very early on, especially for kids whose parents have some firm beliefs of their own (5). It's not really surprising to see kids carry the idea into adulthood and use it to structure their own meal schedules. And since it's not obviously harmful to eat three square meals a day, I suppose it's not a huge issue if this pattern continues on in the future.
What I do worry about is how casually kids are trained to accept assumptions. It is possible a given child will perform better on a different meal schedule. This would not be the first time different methods worked for different people. Are all babies fed three times a day? But if the idea of three meals a day is ingrained into the mind at an early age, how will a kid ever figure it out? My bet is until kids learn to challenge assumptions, they probably won't figure it out.
It raises the question of how to best teach people to challenge assumptions. The best way might be to simply wait it out until adulthood and make each person responsible for learning it on his or her own. I'm inclined to suggest this is the status quo and I don't think it's necessarily a bad approach. As I pointed out earlier, Djokovic managed to do it in his early twenties. And he was already in the top five of perhaps the most competitive profession in the world! My own process of learning this skill over the past few years has been enriching (though without the literally enriching results enjoyed by Mr. Djokovic).
But I also look back and recognize the 'late high school to early adulthood' period as the least creative period of my life. A lot of mistakes I made during this time were based on assumptions I did not care to challenge (or even recognize). I got lucky because none of my mistakes were irreversible. But just because it worked out doesn't mean it was the best way to do it.
I'm not sure what comes first, creativity or challenging assumptions. But it does seem like, in hindsight, one goes with the other. It makes sense to me because the underlying ethos of each is to ask 'why not?'
Why not write a software allowing regular drivers to give rides to strangers?
Why not eat one meal a day at 4pm?
Why not write blog posts about Hubway?
In a way, creativity is merely a process of challenging assumptions and challenging assumptions effectively is impossible without creativity. For me, learning how to program computers on the job brought out my creativity in ways which helped me look differently at the outside world. And as I started to see things differently, my ability to envision new ways of manipulating databases through code developed rapidly. My experience suggests one approach for teaching people to question assumptions is to find ways to cultivate their creative instincts.
As I understand the current education system, things are not very well placed to cultivate creativity in students. I mentioned earlier my struggle to come up with examples of being taught to challenge assumptions (6). I draw a similar blank when I think about the ways my teachers developed or encouraged my creativity. I remember solving problems instead of defining them. I learned how instead of understanding why. These exercises left me well prepared for jobs with organizations structured like schools (or just more school, had I preferred it).
Learning these skills were infinitely valuable. Students coming out of school equipped as I was might find their twenties an interesting time to learn more about the world while finding ways to deeply consider some of what they accepted for two decades. But why wait until age twenty-two? Why wait so long?
As Fallen Leaves suggests, when a big question lacks an obvious answer, better education is often the only solution. If the goal is to teach students to challenge assumptions and this skill works in tandem with creative instincts, perhaps better education means more emphasis on creative pursuits. Unfortunately, the anecdotal evidence I see suggests otherwise. Students are taking fewer art, music, or physical education classes to better allocate their time on honing the skills valued by standardized testing or college admissions boards. It's easy to understand the focus on 'textbook subjects' but I worry about students being unprepared for a world yet to be immortalized in any textbook: tomorrow's.
Footnotes / imagined complaints
1. When I say 'another part of me'...
...I mean the part of me that writes this blog.
2. I usually tell people I started economics in senior year of high school...
In hindsight, I suppose home economics was my first exposure to economics of any kind. I do not think I learned much, though, to help me in my later undergraduate years.
3. Most of my friends were weirdos...
...the rest slept until noon.
4. This became a footnote after I applied my 'who could possibly care about this' test...
Initially, I ate more often under the impression smaller meals eaten more frequently helped my metabolism. These days, I eat less often but perhaps consume more food per meal.
In terms of the societal level comment, I should point out how one of the better places we ate at while my mom was in hospice was called '3 Squares'. Surely, this name was a reference to the general concept of three square meals a day (and suggested their commitment to serving each).
5. My original plan was to link to a clip!
Unfortunately, no such clip could be found. Here's the transcript, I guess. It will have to do.
6. It was fun that he swore in class, though...
The second-place finisher in the 'how I was taught to challenge assumptions' contest comes from a high school history class. I recall one day when the topic of assumptions came up. The teacher leaned forward, slightly, with restrained excitement as he held up his index finger.
"Do you know what happens when you assume?" he asked.
No one responded.
"You make an ass of you and me," he said.
I think our education system can do better.
