Future & Contribution

Teaching Judgment, Not Just Answers

Also called: Mentorship

Personal interest
Philosophical question
Working interpretation

Teaching someone a way to think through problems can do more good than solving one problem myself. I am interested in helping other engineers build good judgment and the skill to analyze problems on their own.

What do I know that I should pass on, rather than keep people depending on me for it?

Why it attracts me

Solving a problem myself feels good and helps once. Teaching someone how to see that kind of problem keeps helping after I have left the room. That multiplication is what draws me to mentorship.

The idea

Judgment is hard to hand over because much of it is invisible. An experienced engineer notices a pattern, rules out a cause and checks one number before trusting another, often without saying why. Mentoring means making that reasoning visible so someone else can practice it. It shares a logic with research done together (Doing Research With Critics and Experts), where critics, experts and learners make each other's work stronger. It also echoes fatherhood (Fatherhood as a Source of Purpose), where teaching and supporting someone is a lasting form of influence.

An example

The Process Stability Lab on this site starts with a familiar question. A tool tightens a bolt on every part, and no two bolts end up exactly as tight. When a reading looks off, is something really wrong, or is it ordinary noise? Rather than telling the user, the lab lets them upset the process in four realistic ways and watch whether the chart notices, and how fast. The point is not one verdict. It is a habit of asking before reacting.

What I think (and don't know)

I think good teaching should make itself less necessary over time. What I don't know is how to tell whether judgment has really been passed on, rather than a set of answers memorized.

Questions I'm still exploring

How do I explain the judgment behind a decision, not just the decision?
When does helping someone solve a problem stop them from learning to solve it?
What would other engineers need from me so that they no longer need me?

Sources and further reading

Allan Collins, John Seely Brown and Ann Holum, "Cognitive Apprenticeship: Making Thinking Visible", American Educator (1991) — How experts can show the hidden reasoning behind their skill so learners can practice it.

Working interpretation: drafted from my notes and interests for review. It is not a direct quotation, and I may still change it.

In short

Mentorship is a more experienced person helping someone else grow their skill and judgment over time. Its reach comes from multiplication. An answer solves one problem. A way of reasoning solves many, including problems the mentor will never see. Good mentors often make their thinking visible: saying out loud what they notice, what they check and why, so the learner can copy the process and not just the result.

Why this matters to me

I would rather leave behind people who can reason well than a pile of problems only I know how to solve. Several of the labs on this site are built in that spirit. They do not hand over an answer; they let someone change a setting and see why the answer changes. I want to pass on that kind of judgment to other engineers, and to keep learning from them in return.

Connections

Fatherhood as a Source of PurposeLegacy

Teaching and supporting others make fatherhood and mentoring related kinds of influence.

Doing Research With Critics and ExpertsImpact

Working with others and mentoring them both spread the ability to do research beyond what one person can do alone. Mentoring and writing research together both multiply what people can do, because skill and judgment spread between them.

Making a Meaningful ContributionPart of

Teaching judgment is one concrete form of contribution, because a way of reasoning keeps helping long after a single problem is solved.