moneyFYI
Financial Freedom Is Merely Organized Common Sense
Attention To Detail
In elementary school
When we were young and in school, attention to detail was a state of being. There was no detail too trivial to avoid a mark reduction. Columbus arrived in 1429 was as egregious as the Americas were discovered by people from Lithuania.
Elementary school taught us several things
None of what we learned included real world facts and none of them showed us how to think. What were we learning? Mostly behaviour.
The behaviors we learned:
- Attention to detail.
- Obedience to authority,
- Attendance and punctuality,
- Rudimentary communication and numeric skills,
- The ability to get along with and work with others.
Many schools still have these as high priorities.
From a strategic point of view
When one sees the implementation and tactics, one can usually derive a strategy. In this case the strategy promoted by public education is to train future factory workers. All five are necessary for factory workers while other skills are needed in other vocations. What was crucial in the late 1800s, is now invalid. There does seem to still be significant emphasis on the five characteristics.
Emphasize the five strategic pieces, but...
Add critical thinking. Add the ability to ask why and know what to do about the answer. (Curiousity)
Add earned respect for one’s abilities, and less attention to the teacher is right. Obedience to authority is being used against us today. Many teachers rely on their position to inculcate unsupportable ideas. Earned skill should be rewarded.
Emphasize the ability to get along with and respect others. Everyone has a story and knows something you do not. Listen and learn.
Communication and numeracy is growing more important by the hour. Teach people to read faster and more critically of both style and thought. Writing will teach you to read better. You cannot read poorly written material easily or quickly. Learn to avoid bad writing. Numeracy is nearly lost, at least in terms of meaning. Every time a politician tells you the 20-year cost of a project, they are exploiting your numerical inadequacy.
I am okay with punctuality and attendance, assuming there is any reason to be in class at all. Objectively many classes are completely worthless. Better use of technology would change the classroom paradigm.
I am especially okay with attention to detail. Minor errors in coding, and communication can have serious outcomes. For example, an apocryphal story from 2004.
A Minneapolis couple decided to go to Florida to thaw out during a particularly icy winter. They planned to stay at the same hotel where they spent their honeymoon 20 years earlier. Because of hectic schedules, it was difficult to coordinate their travel schedules. So, the husband left Minneapolis and flew to Florida on Thursday, with the wife flying down the following day. The husband checked into the hotel. There was a computer in his room, so he decided to send an e-mail to his wife. However, he accidentally left out one letter in her e-mail address, and without realizing his error, sent the e-mail.
Meanwhile, somewhere in Houston, a widow just returned home from her husband’s funeral. He was a minister who was called home to glory following a heart attack. The widow decided to check her e-mail since she was expecting messages from relatives and friends. After reading the first message, she screamed and fainted. The widow’s son rushed into the room, found his mother on the floor, and saw the computer screen which read:
To: My Loving Wife
Subject: I’ve Arrived
Date: November 18, 2004
I know you’re surprised to hear from me. They have computers here now and you are allowed to send e-mails to your loved ones. I’ve just arrived and have been checked in. I see that everything has been prepared for your arrival tomorrow. Looking forward to seeing you then! Hope your journey is as uneventful as mine was.
Sure is freaking hot down here.
I can’t improve on that as an example of the importance of attention to detail. If you would like a real world example read this story about sham trusts.
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