My daughter just started algebra, and as I’ve looked over her shoulder at her homework, I’ve been reminded of the best math teacher I ever had. On our first day of Trigonometry at Seattle’s Roosevelt High School, Mr. Ames showed a video of Galloping Gertie, the Tacoma Narrows Bridge that collapsed in 1940.
“The engineer who designed that bridge,” he said, “got ‘partial credit.’ And I don’t give partial credit. Your answers are right, or they are wrong.”
“The engineer who designed that bridge,” he said, “got ‘partial credit.’ And I don’t give partial credit. Your answers are right, or they are wrong.”
In much of agriculture, you get partial credit. If you fail to take good care of your corn crop, you may suffer reduced yields, but rarely ever a complete crop failure. Even in livestock, you may have high mortality or reduced feed conversion, but rarely ever an absolute loss.
But in the world of vegetables, absolute losses are much more common. Buttoned broccoli, beetle-chewed arugula, and lettuce with rusty-butt are all unsaleable. Weedy salad greens can’t be harvested effectively, and nobody wants bolted cilantro or tomatoes covered in sooty mold growing on aphid juice.
You’ve got to get it right, and you’ve got to get it right every step of the way. Seeders and cultivators must be adjusted correctly, soil fertility and pest control need timely attention, and employees need to know precisely how to get a twist tie on a bunch of kale and get it into the cooler. It isn’t enough go through the motions.
If you’re going to settle for partial credit, don’t plan on success – in Mr. Ames’ trigonometry class, or on the farm.
(By the way, the Tacoma Narrows bridge bounced and rolled in the wind every day until it collapsed. And the wind was only 40 miles per hour the day Galloping Gertie collapsed – not an exceptional gale by any means. Accepting ongoing less-than-good results can be one way to set yourself up for failure.)
But in the world of vegetables, absolute losses are much more common. Buttoned broccoli, beetle-chewed arugula, and lettuce with rusty-butt are all unsaleable. Weedy salad greens can’t be harvested effectively, and nobody wants bolted cilantro or tomatoes covered in sooty mold growing on aphid juice.
You’ve got to get it right, and you’ve got to get it right every step of the way. Seeders and cultivators must be adjusted correctly, soil fertility and pest control need timely attention, and employees need to know precisely how to get a twist tie on a bunch of kale and get it into the cooler. It isn’t enough go through the motions.
If you’re going to settle for partial credit, don’t plan on success – in Mr. Ames’ trigonometry class, or on the farm.
(By the way, the Tacoma Narrows bridge bounced and rolled in the wind every day until it collapsed. And the wind was only 40 miles per hour the day Galloping Gertie collapsed – not an exceptional gale by any means. Accepting ongoing less-than-good results can be one way to set yourself up for failure.)
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