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You Don’t Know How To Do What’s Difficult Because You Don’t Do What’s Easy.
Thank you, Dad!
From grades 5 to 7, I studied in a class with a mathematics profile. My homework almost every weekend was solving a hundred math problems. I worked off these big collections of math problems in algebra or geometry. When I solved a problem, I circled it. If I couldn’t, I left it unmarked and later discussed it with Dad.
My father had a degree in construction. His diploma said Water Facility Engineer. He knew math, so I liked spending my busy math weekends with him. It was our thing.
So when I needed my dad’s help, he’d look at the problem I couldn’t solve and then check my solution for the previous one.
“That one is correct,” I lost my temper once, as 13-year-old kids sometimes do. “Why do you always do that? I’m having a problem with the next one, not this one.”
He smiled. “Do you know why it’s important to solve these one by one, in the exact order they’re given? Because each problem teaches you something you’ll need in the next.”
“People in a hurry to do their homework skim through it and think: oh, this one’s too easy, no point in working through it. Oh, that one is easy too. Then they’d turn the next page, read a math problem, and say, “Wow, that one’s too…