August+2014

The last day of August, plus one more day.
One of the advantages to being a teacher is the long vacation through the summer. All of August was time spent with family, and I learned a few new things along the way as well.

When I came back from Calgary at the end of July I brought home gifts for my wife and kids, and as a joke, I also got a [|Rubik's Cube] for my wife. As it turns out, the joke was on me. After opening up the standard 3x3 cube that I'd bought I started to wonder about it. The cube is a 40 year old puzzle now, and I remember when it had it's heyday in the 80's. It wasn't long before I could mess with it enough to complete one side, but that is as far as I ever got. I guess I had other things to do in the 1980's besides play with a Rubik's Cube.

Things have changed a bunch in 30 years, and as I sat in my living room playing with the cube I figured that there must be a decent "how to" video on YouTube that might get me closer to solving the cube than the one-sided solve I'd been stuck at since the 1980's. After browsing the search results for about 5 seconds I settled on [|this video by Noah Richardson] as my tutorial. With cube in hand I watched the screen while I twisted and turned the faces of the cube. None of it made any sense, I just tried to copy exactly what the instructor did, and before long, the faces of the cube were sorted and ordered in the same manner as the ones on the video. It wasn't a solve yet, but it was working, and at that point I moved past a curious hope to learn and into a belief that I really might be able to do the Rubik's Cube if I paid careful attention to the instructions.

I watched the video and copied the moves about a dozen times, and like some sort of magic the cube would solve right there in my hands. It didn't even feel like I had solved it the first few times it happened, I had only been the muscle and sinew that twisted it into shape, only the eyes and the ears interpreting a set of video instructions. Sure, I had solved the cube, but I had no idea how it had happened. In fact, I decided that I couldn't really claim to be able to solve the cube if I was depending on the video, so I put down the cube, wrote out a small set of instructions on a piece of paper while watching the video, and then left the video behind.

Consolidating my knowledge of how to solve the cube meant leaving the video behind, and truthfully, I could get to a solve more quickly with my notes. I also was more likely to make big mistakes and get hopelessly lost, so even though my performance was quicker, I was also less reliable solving the cube over a set of attempts. As I got better at solving the cube with my notes I started to think that maybe I could lay claim to the ability to solve the cube. Somehow it still didn't feel right though, because I was still relying on my notes. My kids actually called my notes a "cheat sheet" as if somehow I was cheating by using notes. Was I cheating by using a video too? If using a video and using notes were cheating, then it seemed that the only way that I could authentically lay claim to the assertion that I could solve the cube is if I memorized the steps.

From the first day I watched the video until my first solve using memorized steps took about three weeks. By August 20th I could solve the 3x3 cube from memory using the one and only method I know. I'll never break anybody's speed record, but I can usually solve a cube now in about 5 minutes. So, my learning adventure in August was learning to solve the Rubik's Cube, and it has been a very satisfying journey. Even so, I still have lingering questions about the whole process. For example, I know how to solve the cube, but I have no clue why the steps work. My cube knowledge isn't that deep. Also, if I get confused and make errors part way through the process then I usually have to go back to the very first step to get going again. This has often reminded me of a little one learning the alphabet for the first time and getting stuck on "L, M, N, O, P..." and having to go back to "A" to sort it all out. Sometimes I feel like I've just memorized a joke in a language that I don't speak. The joke is funny for the hearers, but I have no idea what I said, or why it's funny. Echoes of the [|Turing Test] are working their way in here, but that is a bunny trail for another time.

Now my cube solving ability has plateaued at a level that I can live with. There are more steps I could learn and patterns to recognize that would lead to more elegant solves, but the method that I have is functional. It works. I wonder if this is also how people end up thinking about their literacy or numeracy; being functionally literate and satisfied to move on to other things. As a teacher, I worry about that. At the same time, life always presents competing demands for our time and attention, and so many learning tasks end up plateauing due to time constraints, and not the abilities of the learners.

After all, August was more than an experiment proving the effectiveness of direct instruction via video to complete a complex task. I also did some carpentry, fixed a car, and rode on seven roller coasters during a four night stay in Minneapolis. On the trip we visited my elderly Grandfather, and I held hands with my daughters at the grave of their Great, Great, Great Grandfather and Grandmother. I learned so much more about my family than about the cube on that vacation. Having the time in July to learn about curriculum theory and in August to learn about roller coasters and Rubik's Cubes was awesome. Time away from the classroom prepares me for time within the classroom, and helps me to navigate the complexities of teaching and learning.