Part 06 - Understanding: How Do We Know That We Know?

“The noblest pleasure is the joy of understanding.” -Leonardo Da Vinci

Understanding: How do We Know that We Know?

While taking a grad class on theory of education, an interesting question crossed my path: What does it mean to learn? How do we know something has been learned? Does memorizing something mean it was learned, despite being forgotten one week after taking the exam? How do we know that we know something?

This is not the philosophical, how do we know we’re right, but rather at what point has something been learned or understood? Does that depend on the depth of knowledge of the facts? If that is the case, then I’m not sure if I know anything… I certainly do not know all the facts of the Civil War… nor the Milky Way… nor teaching… but I know some. So do I know anything at all? I’d like to think I do.

Perhaps we should separate understanding from mastery. There are few masters of anything, and I am unsure if I want to master something other than asking questions. Despite not being a master of a subject or topic, I can still understand it. Here is my theory on whether or not I understand something:

Can I teach it to someone else and answer the questions they will ask?

If someone asks a question about something that I “understand” and I cannot answer this question, I don’t completely understand it. It may even be okay that I can’t answer every question, but I should have at least considered every question.

If someone asks a question I have not even thought of, I don’t understand the topic enough to even consider the question. Understand what I’m saying? Understanding something implies you know which questions need to be asked to understand it more.

For example, when my students give a sales pitch in the shark tank for their product from the Industrial Revolution and I ask who their target consumer is, and they don’t really know, they don’t understand the product. When I ask a student, who is already intrigued by the Holocaust, why Hitler hated the Jews and they haven’t considered that before, they don’t understand the Holocaust. They only knew the facts, but they don’t understand it.

This is tricky! We can’t think of the questions we didn’t think of asking… so how do we know if we ever understand it? Try talking about it to other people and “teaching” it. Ideally, do it with people who are just as curious as you. They’ll ask questions. See if you have the answers. They will challenge your understanding.