I use Microsoft Excel. When I don’t know which formula to use, I go to the online help. It gives me the explanation with examples.
To learn how to grow mushrooms, I go to YouTube and see video clips. I can see various ways to do it.
Models and examples are great help to learn something.
If you want to achieve the goal with fewer mistakes, it seems a good idea to copy a successful example, just like I copy a formula from Excel help site to my own spreadsheet.
We know it works by experience. As the safe bet, we often follow an example that looks good apparently.
But, in the real world, not all who referred successful examples achieve the same result. Using the same cosmetics as a movie star doesn’t always make you look like her. A farming method that works for your friend doesn’t necessarily work for you.
Is that because you are copying a wrong example? It may be, but it is more likely so because the movie star or your friend is not you. Without knowing yourself, you can’t find a right example to refer or tweak it to suit your own situation.
In the other day my children wanted the instant noodle soup. I made them cook by themselves to see how it would go.
I didn’t tell them anything but to read the package instruction. They measured and boiled the water. They put the dry noodle in. My daughter even chopped some green onions for garnish (from then on her brother was not much of help but just for cheering things up). She put the soup mix into the bowls and poured hot water. The rest was to drain cooked noodle and put it into the soup.
But she didn’t drain the water in the sink. Instead, she first carried the bowls of soup to the dining room. Then she carried the pot full of hot water with noodle to the dining room, too. I stopped her and said, “You shouldn’t prepare food in the dining room. It’s for serving but not for food preparation. You have to complete cooking in the kitchen.”
She said there was no room in the kitchen. I said then she should have cleared the workspace up before she started cooking. Knowing how her mother always challenges her, she didn’t argue but quietly brought the bowls back to the kitchen and made some room on the stove top. She fished transferring the noodle and finally they could have lunch.
This all back-and-forth took extra time. As the result, the noodle in the pot became overcooked. I gave her more critique saying that type of food was cooking time sensitive so that the poor planning greatly affected on the end result.
My poor daughter kept murmuring ‘I failed’ when she was eating while his simple-minded brother was happily devouring the treaty food. I reminded her she did well overall without my help, which was a great compliment, and she would do even better next time.
They have an example of a cook, their mother, in their daily life. Assuming my 11 years old has seen enough, I let her copy the example as she thinks.
She copies what she sees about me. From her point of view, she is doing exactly how mom is doing. From my point of view, however, she is not.
And even if she does exactly how I do, it may not work for her. She is smaller than me. Her height and strength may not allow her to work as fast as I do. The extra time she takes may affect the following order. Or she may be good at working in the clatter area, not like me. She may think clearing the space is waste of time for her. As far as it works for her to achieve her goal, that is fine.
I don’t want my children to be satisfied only by copying me or someone else. I want them to go beyond using their own uniqueness.
We all learn from an example. But do not just copy religiously. Example is an example. You learn from it and go beyond.