Classes vs Wikis

One of my least favorite things people say (an emergent theme for the blog) is that they wish they were taught how to do taxes instead of Calculus. It’s annoying not only because I had an affinity for high school math and am biased, but also because, if they went to my high school, they did take an online “personal finance” class and it was a total waste of time which I can prove because at least people remember taking Calculus. No one remembers having to practice moving phony financial info from fake W2s to 1040s.

But I do sympathize with them. My first job out of college hired a lot of new grads, and the first few months consisted of classes mostly on different languages, the database structure, and our products, but also on things like benefits and company culture. A lot of them were a waste of time like when they read us the whole list of qualifying life events which I definitely won’t remember by the time any of them happens. (Thank goodness I can just look them up). But after I graduated from corporate school, there were equally as many moments when I came across a wiki (or couldn’t find a wiki) that I wished someone had just told me about in a class. I confess to complaining, but I am the object of my own complaints. I’m telling myself to get my story straight.

Looking back, the main problem with the personal finance class wasn’t with the silly exercises. At its heart, the curriculum didn’t have much substance. (If I can’t remember what was taught, is that evidence for or against my claim?) That’s not to say there’s nothing of substance in personal finance. They could have taught about interest or budgeting. Even then, I knew I would forget how to do my taxes by the time I had to do them for real. (This is another common gripe, but as it happens, having to relearn everything in April is somehow less oppressive than the burden of carrying tax knowledge with you all year). In fact, how to do taxes is the perfect example of something that belongs in a wiki. You have a clear goal: not getting audited, and there are clear steps to reach that goal that you wouldn’t even want to remember if you could.

You might naively think that you can slap any information in a wiki and call it a day. And you would be right if you like making big, convoluted wikis that no one ever reads or updates. Don’t worry. It’s not your fault; it’s inevitable. Paradoxically, when people open wikis, the last thing they want to do is read a wiki. They really want to do something else, but for whatever reason, it’s not working. If the wiki is a longform essay, they’re going to skim it for relevant looking details.

Compare this to a class. Even if people are legally required to be there and would rather do something else, the goal is to learn. There’s a teacher there to answer questions, provide feedback, and head off misconceptions. This makes classes good for learning concepts like derivatives or Dada. Things that are hard to learn but also hard to forget. (I’ve always known I was opposed to note-taking, but I’ve just now decided why. Taking notes converts a class into a wiki.)

At their best, classes teach goal-agnostic topics. Once you know about derivatives and what they mean, you can use them on any (continuous, smooth) function you want (even if you have to reference a wiki for the calculation).

As a trampolineless child, every time we visited our friends’ trampoline we spent the whole time on it. So much so that when it was time to go (finally, for real, Mom is done talking to her friend), and we had to leave the trampoline, the gravel driveway felt like it should bounce you into the air. Maybe it did a little. Even at night, lying in bed, I could feel it in my stomach and the soles of my feet. It changes your perspective to feel like, at any moment, you might suddenly leap 3 feet in the air.

The same thing happened when I took high school Physics. I started seeing free body diagrams everywhere, whenever I took a step, grasped a doorknob, or pushed two blocks of equal mass up an inclined plane. (Something something The Witness).

By my count, the remaining Family Feud High School Math Complaint is “When are we ever gonna use this?” In my Algebra textbook, every chapter had a section about some occupation that used the math from that chapter. The occupation they chose for the chapter on quadratics was Fireworks Manufacturer which is how I knew I would never use quadratics. Which is totally false! They’re a super fundamental concept, and they pop up all the time (sometimes even outside the field of Pyrotechnics). It was irresponsible of the writers to even suggest a limit.

I’m beginning to worry that I’ve been too effusive about classes, and I’m afraid of giving the wrong impression. Wikis and classes each have their places. Sure with each at their best, classes get the better shake, but only because of the heavy lifting wikis do.