Why education is about learning to get unstuck, not about knowing it all
The Desert Drop-Off
Imagine being blindfolded, driven for hours, and dropped in the middle of the desert. You take off the blindfold, and the horizon stretches endlessly in every direction. No map. No trail. No clear way out.
At first, the feeling is panic. The desert is uncomfortable—your heart races, your mind spins, and you want to get out now. But if you’ve been trained in orienteering, you know what to do. Use the sun. Read the land. Trust that you can move, think, and adapt until you find your way out. And if you’ve traveled with a guide, you take comfort in knowing: they’ve been here before, and they know the way out if things get bad.
That reassurance changes everything.
To My Students: The Skill You’re Really Learning
You’re Supposed to Feel Stuck
If you’re feeling stuck on homework or overwhelmed by the pace in class—good. That means you’re in the training zone.
I intentionally design my courses to drop you into deserts. Not because I want you to suffer, but because the most valuable skill you’ll carry from my class isn’t memorizing every formula. It’s learning how to find your way out when you feel lost.
You Can’t Learn It All
Here’s the reality: there are hundreds of branches of mathematics, and within each, dozens or even hundreds of methods. We haven’t discovered them all yet, and no one could ever master the complete list. That’s not the goal.
A Better Goal: Learn to Get Unstuck
The goal is this: when you hit a problem that feels impossible, you don’t give up. You lean on your tools—your notes, your peers, your TAs, and me. You experiment. You try something, learn from it, and try again. Each time you make it out of the desert, even if the path looks different every time, you add another layer of confidence.
You Have Support
And here’s the reassurance: you’re not in this desert alone. You have guides. Each time you start to panic, remember: I’ve been here before, even if you haven’t. I know the way out. I’ll show you how to figure it out for yourself, and if you get stuck, I can get us out.
Over time, as you build your own record of finding the way out, you’ll stop fearing the desert. You’ll begin to trust yourself.
To My Colleagues: The Hardest Part of Teaching
Designing Deserts Is the Hard Part
Designing deserts for students is the hardest part of our profession.
At one end of the spectrum are the high performers—they’ll succeed in any desert you drop them into. At the other end are students who aren’t fully prepared for this terrain yet—they need more foundation than we can provide in a single course.
The Murky Middle Matters Most
But the vast majority fall in the murky middle. These are the students who may not make it out of the desert on their own—but who can succeed with the right design and the right guidance. Not by lowering standards or paving over the wilderness, but by crafting deserts that are challenging yet navigable, and by walking alongside students as they practice orienteering.
The Coverage Trap
And here’s where the tension comes in: coverage. There’s always another concept, another chapter, another problem set. Coverage pulls us away from designing deserts where students can actually stop, look around, and practice finding their way. But if we rush them through every landmark, we rob them of the time they need to build the very skill that makes them engineers: the ability to navigate the unknown.
Faculty as Guides and Reassurers
Our role as faculty is not just to set challenges but also to reassure. To say explicitly, “Don’t worry. I’ve been here before. I know the way out. I’ll help you learn to navigate it for yourself, but if you get stuck, I can guide us out.”
That reassurance doesn’t make the desert less real—it makes the challenge survivable, and it builds the trust students need to keep walking.
Wrap-Up: Discomfort Is the Training Ground
Being dropped in the desert is uncomfortable. It always will be. But with practice, reassurance, and guidance, it becomes a challenge you know you can handle.
For students: every time you get unstuck, you’re building the most transferable skill you’ll carry into your career.
For faculty: every time we resist the pull of coverage and design deserts with the right balance of challenge and reassurance, we help students who never thought they could navigate on their own to prove to themselves that they can.
The real measure of education isn’t how much you know—it’s how confidently you can find your way when you don’t know.
