Teach a young person to measure and they will learn to think. Teach them a lot of facts and they will forget.
After retirement I started mentoring young people, guiding them through different tasks. None of the tasks assigned was more valuable than teaching them how to measure and verify their work. Knowing how to measure is important, whether it’s space, temperature, pressure, moisture, preparing a recipe, counting calories, constructing, planning daily activities, setting up a time schedule, and the list goes on of things that can and should use measuring.
Greg, in the above photo, is working with a team of other young men building parts that must fit together in building a Tabernacle replica assembly for a church class project. By measuring, he is validating the quality of his part to make sure it mates with parts other members of his team are building. By working together the team gains knowledge of how important its work is to the overall project for correct assembly. As a result, the team bonds together through communicating, comparing, and helping, gaining knowledge from each other, and ultimately learning the realization of how synergy works. The team celebrates their accomplishment.
From this project task, they learn to plan, analyze, solve problems, invent, design, organize, create, calculate, think, resolve, work together, assemble, appreciate hard work, gain knowledge, become experts, lead, understand, comprehend, evaluate, bond, and develop something worthy that each member can take pride in.
If you teach them to measure, you stay on the side line and be their coach. They will work it out.