Knowing What You Know. How It Matters
Whoever said "what you don't know can't hurt you" needs to rethink the position. Knowing what you don't know keeps you from learning what you need to know or would benefit from if you did know it. Likewise, there is the foolish notion, "Ignorance is bliss." We teach these mindless ideas to our children and then wonder why so many don't like school. Anyway, what I really want to explore here is the notion of thinking about thinking. Scholars call this metacognition. But, it really is a simple idea that we all experience every day to various degrees. Suppose you look up a phone number in the phone book. You have to quiz yourself to see if you remember it well enough to dial it. That is, you have to think about what you know and if you know enough to complete the task. These things are often done consciously, and your conscious mind has to allocate enough effort and thinking resources to perform the task. In this particular case, we are talking about wo...