Understanding Things

Goals

  1. Care about understanding things and find the process of developing understanding rewarding.
  2. Excel at moving from “no understanding” to “deep and connected understanding.”
  3. Describe understanding and how to achieve this.

What

Simple Description

Understanding is when you can:

Analysis: {grasp meaning, relate parts and whole, explain/apply, connect with other knowledge}

Longer Narrative

Understanding something means grasping how its parts relate to each other and to the whole—seeing the structure beneath the surface.

When you understand democracy, you’re not just memorizing that people vote. You see how representation connects to accountability, how checks and balances prevent power concentration, how individual rights both enable and constrain collective decision-making. You could explain why democracies have these features, not just that they do.

With coding, understanding isn’t typing syntax you’ve memorized. It’s knowing why a loop solves a problem more elegantly than repetition, how variables hold state across operations, how functions encapsulate complexity. You could predict what code will do before running it, or debug something you’ve never seen before.

Understanding quality means recognizing the relationship between materials, craftsmanship, durability, and purpose. A quality coffee cup isn’t just about the ceramic—it’s about how thickness affects heat retention, how the glaze feels in your hand, how the design serves the ritual of drinking.

There’s a deeper thread here: understanding is about seeing connections. It’s the difference between knowing Newton’s laws as three equations and seeing how they describe everything from why seatbelts matter to why planets orbit the way they do. It’s recognizing that the C major scale’s intervals create certain emotional effects because of how human ears process frequencies.

Understanding also means you can use the knowledge flexibly. You can apply it to new situations, spot when it breaks down, teach it to others, or combine it with other understandings in surprising ways.

Maybe the core of understanding is this: you can predict, explain, and improvise within that domain because you’ve grasped the underlying logic—not just the surface facts.

essence: relationships !

WIFM (What’s In It For Me?)

How to Measure Level of Understanding

Practical test: Could you teach X clearly to a beginner?

How to Progress (Improve) Level of Understanding

Use Bloom’s Cognitive Levels as the roadmap for progress:

  1. Remembering
    • Recall or recognize basic facts, terms, or concepts.
    • Example: List Newton’s three laws of motion.
  2. Understanding
    • Explain ideas in your own words, interpret meaning, summarize.
    • Example: Explain Newton’s 2nd Law to a 12-year-old.
  3. Applying
    • Use knowledge in concrete situations and problem-solving.
    • Example: Use Newton’s 2nd Law to calculate the force on a car accelerating at 2 m/s².
  4. Analyzing
    • Break knowledge into parts, find patterns, compare/contrast.
    • Example: Compare Newton’s view of force with Aristotle’s view of motion.
  5. Evaluating
    • Judge based on evidence and criteria, test arguments.
    • Example: Evaluate whether Newton’s laws are sufficient to describe planetary motion without relativity.
  6. Creating
    • Synthesize and generate something new using the knowledge.
    • Example: Design a novel experiment to demonstrate Newton’s 2nd Law.

Progression Path:
Remember → Understand → Apply → Analyze → Evaluate → Create

This path works for any subject, from science to art to life skills.

[[Bloom’s Levels]]

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