Perhaps children intuitively have 'chain of events' thought patterns. It's something many adults seem to lack, which makes proposing solutions to big problems difficult; because one has to be able to see far beyond simple cause & effect to both understand the problem and the proposed solution.
When Kids Start Doing Root Cause Analysis
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Re: When Kids Start Doing Root Cause Analysis
#12I'm trying it myself and love it. You can get real far in 5 whys. Speaking or writing it in a stream-of-consciousness fashion (first thing that comes to your mind) is quite insightful.
Re: When Kids Start Doing Root Cause Analysis
#13His experience of having trouble answering more than '5 why's' is a nice revelation. This is an exercise that nearly every engineer learns about (that started at Toyota[1]) and has become one of the basic tools used in continuous improvement. I often complete the exercise and it is trouble enough to make it to the 5'th why, the thought actually never occurred to me to go farther. As a side note - when you are improvi…
If it doesn't hurt, you're doing it wrong.
If something is hard and costly to change, yet it's the root cause of problems, it's so much more important to change.
Re: When Kids Start Doing Root Cause Analysis
#14Perhaps children intuitively have 'chain of events' thought patterns. It's something many adults seem to lack, which makes proposing solutions to big problems difficult; because one has to be able to see far beyond simple cause & effect to both understand the problem and the proposed solution.
The technical term for this is "empiricism," and you're right that some adults lose this after a time, or at least mental models start resembling Kowloon Walled City.
Re: When Kids Start Doing Root Cause Analysis
#15One of my favorite quotes regarding this is from Michael Crichton in one of his more obscure, autobiographical books called Travels: "Although knowledge of how things work is sufficient to allow manipulation of nature, what humans really want to know is why things work. Children don't ask how the sky is blue. They ask why the sky is blue." I recommend the book to anyone and everyone looking to explore their own under…
The real 'why' can be a dangerous question to answer, though. :)
"Daddy, why do the owls want to make the Sun go away forever?"
"Well, Billy, it's because the film is an expression of the cultural tension generated by the threat of nuclear warfare which faced American society in the 1980s when it was made. When they're singing about how the good guys are 'running out of batteries' it's giving you a context to interpret your experiences in a possible future in which you might have to hide out in a fallout shelter in the dark for days at a time."
"Huh?"
Re: When Kids Start Doing Root Cause Analysis
#16I have two kids, and the youngest is just starting on the 'why?' phase. Its great fun! I treat it as a game to try and see how long I can keep on answering. As soon as I don't know the answer, I explain that I don't know (or perhaps that nobody yet knows) and discuss how we could find out. One interesting thing I discovered - a surprisingly large number of things will either lead to physics or human psychology if you…
> However I don't know if that reflects some deeper truth about the world, or just my bias in how I answer the questions. It's the same reason why you always end up on "Philosophy" if you're browsing Wikipedia and consistently follow the first link in each article. Here's the path for "Airplane": Airplane Fixed wing aircraft Aircraft Vehicle Motion (physics) Natural science Science Knowledge /* we know where this goi…
I had heard this before and just tried it...awesome!
It's also interesting that philosophy links to existence (ontology) and that links back to philosophy.
Re: When Kids Start Doing Root Cause Analysis
#17Why is almost always the wrong question, since it involves an intention. The right question to ask is How. "Why did you do that?" vs "How did that phenomenon happen?".
Re: When Kids Start Doing Root Cause Analysis
#18Perhaps children intuitively have 'chain of events' thought patterns. It's something many adults seem to lack, which makes proposing solutions to big problems difficult; because one has to be able to see far beyond simple cause & effect to both understand the problem and the proposed solution.
The technical term for this is "empiricism," and you're right that some adults lose this after a time, or at least mental models start resembling Kowloon Walled City.
I think the problem is that empiricism is often taught, in primary school, in a very 2-dimensional, black & white fashion – enforcing a rigid view of cause & effect. (Edit: often the case, but not always. There are great teachers out there.)
Maybe it's test-driven curriculum that's largely to blame: question -> answer.
I think in addition to basic empirical reasoning, kids should be exposed to determinism in the vein of chaos theory; where one is forced to accept that while connections exist, they may not be immediately obvious. (Edit 2: I guess this is "Art/Music Class", sadly non-existent in more and more schools)
Re: When Kids Start Doing Root Cause Analysis
#19I have two kids, and the youngest is just starting on the 'why?' phase. Its great fun! I treat it as a game to try and see how long I can keep on answering. As soon as I don't know the answer, I explain that I don't know (or perhaps that nobody yet knows) and discuss how we could find out. One interesting thing I discovered - a surprisingly large number of things will either lead to physics or human psychology if you…
> However I don't know if that reflects some deeper truth about the world, or just my bias in how I answer the questions. It's the same reason why you always end up on "Philosophy" if you're browsing Wikipedia and consistently follow the first link in each article. Here's the path for "Airplane": Airplane Fixed wing aircraft Aircraft Vehicle Motion (physics) Natural science Science Knowledge /* we know where this goi…
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Re: When Kids Start Doing Root Cause Analysis
#20Why is almost always the wrong question, since it involves an intention. The right question to ask is How. "Why did you do that?" vs "How did that phenomenon happen?".
I've read somewhere that kids keep asking "why?" because they figure out that it's an easy way to get people to talk a lot, and listening to people talk is how they learn language.