What skills do students need to lead successful lives?
We all need a foundation of general knowledge to succeed in life, including literacy, math, science, and many other topics. Each individual also needs additional specific skills that will allow them to thrive in their jobs and personal lives. The Meta-Problem Method can help balance the trade-offs.
Complex problems are often vague and have many possible solutions. The Meta-Problem Method may lead you far away from the dilemma that started your quest. That’s because the method forces you to clarify what you really want and what you are willing to give up. It enables you to compare objectively the possible pathways and their trade offs. It prevents you locking into solutions mode too early and then doubling down on solving a low-yield problem that does not serve your goals as well as the alternatives. At the end of this process, you will have a better understanding of your priorities and how to achieve them.
Steps in the Meta-Problem Method
Dilemma
The high-level issue you are trying to address
Teach the right skills at the right time.
Goal
The changes you want to make to address the dilemma. There are usually many options.
Supporting Goals
- Students learn the right knowledge and skills before beginning their careers.
- Students learn how to think and act.
Other goals could include specific topics students would learn, maximizing each student’s earning potential, minimizing college debt, and students find careers that suit them.
Problem Space
The set of problems you could chose to solve to advance your goals, plus the constraints that hold you back.
Example problems
- What knowledge and skills to students need to learn during their education? Maybe the problem to solve is “Which knowledge will allow young adults to succeed in work while also being educated citizens?”
- How can education teach students how to think and behave? Maybe the problem to solve is “How can teachers ensure students develop an understanding of the world?”
There are many other potential problems to solve related to what students learn by the end of their educational journey. Each goal has many possible problems we could link to it. Are there other problems linked to these first two goals? Which options come to mind for the other goals?
High-Yield Problems
Sometimes solving one problem helps make progress towards several goals. In this step, we identify these “two-for-the-price-of-one” problems.
Which options will advance more than one goal?
- Teaching as many facts and skills as possible will give students more tools in their careers, as well as increase the number of specific topics they learn, and can set students up for a variety of future vocations. However, students will not have as much time to learn how to think, which may limit their earning potential and may mean they need extra education to gain those skills.
- Teaching students how to think and act as the primary focus of their education can set them up for very successful careers. However, time spent learning to think may reduce the number of facts and other skills they learn and may mean they need additional domain-specific training before they begin their careers.
There are many potential solutions that will have varying effects on the set of goals. Which alternatives improve the most important goals? How might the unknown change the right path forward? What other possible solutions are there to address the dilemma?
Problem Selection
Which of the many possible options in the high-yield problem step is the best set to address the dilemma?
- Which solutions make the most sense to upgrade education?
- Which solutions will best address the dilemma?
- Which solutions will deliver the best outcome for the least amount of time, effort and money?
Implement, Learn and Adapt
Check continuously that you are still solving the best problem, as new information emerges.
Observe and learn as you go. As new information reveals itself, check continuously that you’re still solving the right problem.