Yes, there he is… our glorious thought-leader, riding a jet ski. But Tim needs your help… seriously. Here’s the problem:
A few weeks ago, I was chatting with Tim. He mentioned that he’d recently taken his first ride on a Jet Ski. Several torturous minutes later, he got off, still alive and capable of detecting faint signals. But his back was suffering… badly.
Tim, as Tim is prone to do, let the ski rental place know of his pains. The instructor/rental guy looked at Tim, and simply said, “Oh. You need to lean forward.”
At this point in our conversation, Tim rolled his eyes, gave a half-wave of his hand, and said, “Oh, thanks. That would have been nice to know before I got on the ski.” Obviously, if the instructor had told Tim to lean forward before he took on the Old Man of the Sea, Tim’s back would have been saved a lot of hardship.
Or would it?
Along with all the other instruction Tim would have received, he’d have been told, “Oh, and be sure and lean forward.” Would this have stuck with Tim? Would it have been held up in his brain as important as, say, “Keep a tight grip on the handlebars?” Would it have competed with, “Look here… this is the ignition key. Turn it to start, turn it again to stop.”
Would simply telling Tim ahead of time to lean forward been enough to save Tim’s back?
Better yet, how would you have prevented Tim’s back pain? Here’s the question, broken down for easy answering…
1. WHEN would you have told Tim, “Lean forward?”
2. HOW would you have told Tim?
3. Free response: what else would you have done/not done to ensure Tim got off the jet ski happy, healthy, and not hurting?
Come on… Tim’s back is counting on you figuring out how humans learn… how best to communicate… and what our brain does with information that is important, but maybe non-obvious in application or significance.