Reading Rainbow Kickstarter? What about Charlie Munger's mental models!

Reading Rainbow and reading choice

I recently wrote about a U.K program that increased girls’ levels of physical activity when they had a say in the content of those classes. Education researcher Stephen Krashen has demonstrated the same phenomenon also happens with reading. 

A recent piece on Reading Rainbow and its limits in the New Yorker reports that Krashen’s findings have “shown that when kids choose what they get to read and when, their vocabulary and language skills tend to improve, as does their overall knowledge and ability to think for themselves.” 

Reading Rainbow's Kickstarter campaign ad.

The piece cites the new Reading Rainbow app as likely to foster that kind of positive result in children who use it.  And, interestingly, argues somewhat counterintuitively (it would, I think, certainly be counterintuitive to Charlie Munger, at least) that the app promotes an  “entirely onscreen reading experience” might not be so bad, either. The piece cites another recent U.K. survey that found that kids were more likely to enjoy reading “if, instead of using only books, they used both books and touch screens.”

Whatever the actual merits of the app and onscreen reading generally, I agree with the Adrienne Raphel’s conclusion that “there’s something nice about an app that, instead of rating and ranking kids, mostly just lets them read.”

Reading Rainbow’s smashingly successful Kickstarter campaign

The Reading Rainbow Kickstarter campaign recently launched was a huge success. Aiming to to “Bring Reading Rainbow Back for Every Child, Everywhere,” those behind the effort set out with the goal to raise a million dollars in thirty-five days. They reached that mark in fewer than twelve hours. Emboldened, they revised the mark to five million dollars. More than one hundred thousand people bought into the campaign—including, famously, Seth MacFarlane whose matching million dollars pushed the total donations to more than six million—allowing the organizers’ lofty goal to be reached and then some. 

Munger Mental Models Kickstarter?

Like many, I have fond memories of the program. I’m happy for what the New Yorker piece calls the “Upworthy-worthy goal of putting books in every child’s hands nationwide,” even if it did take a “smorgasbord of rewards for contributors” to grease the wheels of donation.

Inspired by the success of revivifying something that was such a small but obviously emotionally powerful part of our childhoods, I wonder what a Kickstarter campaign for Munger’s Mental Models might look like.

I know there’s interest. My post on Think Mental Models is by far the most popular piece on this blog. And it points to a pay site that, presumably, does a pretty brisk business. But, as I argued in that piece, there’s a lot that a canned program can’t really teach. And, as helpful as pneumonic devices like those espoused by Andrew are, they only work once a lot of other stuff has happened. More than just learning the array of models that Think Mental Models offers, even more than taking the additional step of learning when to apply which models a la Mason Meyers via Clayton Christensen, there’s something else required to successfully use Munger’s latticework approach in practice.

Michael Oakeshott uses the wonderful example of the Confucian story of a wheelwright and the Duke Huan of Chi to illustrate the difference between what he calls ‘technical’ and ‘practical’ knowledge.[i] Technical knowledge is the stuff that can be memorized and written down as rules; practical knowledge is the stuff that can’t be learned or taught this way.

Munger has already said that learning this stuff is pretty difficult even before the idea of having to conquer both the technical and practical aspects of our knowledge. Hard enough, in fact, that he thinks it a good idea only to try in elite educational institutions (an idea I strongly disagree with, by the way). One person who has thought a lot about Mungers ideas and how to put them to their fullest use is similarly pessimistic that they could be learned or taught widely.[ii]

Has Protagoras robbed you? How about Charlie Munger?

In his ‘Dialogues’, Plato recorded this exchange: Socrates, “What is the matter? Has Protagoras robbed you of anything?” His interlocutor replied, laughing, “Yes he has, Socrates, of the wisdom which he keeps to himself.”

This blog was founded because Munger and Greg Glassman shared much with us. Munger has been great at sharing what he knows and is remarkably generous with his time and energy. But I think he—and his heirs, and I mean his intellectual heirs, not those who will receive the monetary fortune he’s accrued and is currently giving away—could give us so much more if he tried. If he believed that, while success leaves clues, that teaching could provide so much more.

So, should we despair over ever learning or teaching Munger’s mental models widely? I don’t think so. I think there are a few people who have a firm grasp of Munger’s approach—who have an understanding of both the technical and practical aspects of how to put such a latticework approach to use—and who might teach it to others.

An historical counterexample

Munger is famous for his anecdote of the man from Arkansas (or wherever) believing in baptism because he’s seen it done. Well, I believe Munger’s ideas can be taught, because I’ve seen a very similar thing get taught.

Though clearly less advanced, less far-ranging, and less multi-disciplinary, Benjamin Graham taught Warren Buffett what he knew. Many, including Munger, have opined that what Buffett took from Graham was of immense utility. Munger, not surprisingly—armed with his black belt in chutzpah—is a more ambitious thinker than Graham.

But that ambition means not only more difficulty in conveying what he has learned, but more possibility in teaching it. Yes, what Munger is up to is a lot more difficult than the more technique-based ‘Geiger counter’ method espoused by Graham. At the same time, though, Munger has, in my view, the same chances of teaching what he knows as Graham did what he knew. Pending students capable of grasping the material, of course.

A lesson from Étienne and the education of Blaise Pascal

Euclid's "Elements"

Yes, Munger is 90 years old.[iii] Yes, he may not have the interest in personally teaching the course. And even a wildly successful Kickstarter campaign is likely to move the needle for a guy who has more money than he could ever use.

And, yes, I can think of an even bigger obstacle to success—Munger doesn’t think that such a class would work and is ideologically opposed to the attempt, on the grounds that getting people to find this stuff out for themselves rather than either pounding it into or spoonfeeding them is a better way.[iv]

I’ve got another historical example of a great—and presumably stubborn—teacher who changed his mind at the demonstration of something remarkable (though admittedly, a lot more remarkable than any campaign in the history of Kickstarter). Étienne Pascal, Blaise’s dad—wasn’t too keen on the education on offer for his children. So, he took to providing for their education himself.

He thought the best approach was to leave mathematics until later in his children’s study, so they started on a program devoid of instruction in the subject. At least one commentator has observed that this had the effect of only whetting his children’s appetites for the study of the discipline.[v]

Euclid's Proposition 32

Étienne continued on this course until one day he happened on Blaise who was in his room drawing on the floor. Blaise had independently worked out and illustrated the basis for Euclid’s 32^nd proposition right on his bedroom floor. Having been denied mathematics instruction by his father, Blaise, on his own, discovered that the interior angles of a triangle add up to the sum of two right angles. 

Of course, Étienne relented, gave his son a copy of Euclid's Elements and immediately began teaching his children mathematics.

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[i] Duke Huan of Ch’i was reading a book at the upper end of the hall; the wheelwright was making a wheel at the lower end. Put­ting aside his mallet and chisel, he called to the Duke and asked him what book he was reading. “One that records the words of the Sages,” answered the Duke. “Are those Sages alive?” asked the wheelwright. “Oh, no,” said the Duke, “they are dead.” “In that case,” said the wheelwright, “what you are reading can be noth­ing but the lees and scum of bygone men.” “How dare you, a wheelwright, find fault with the book I am reading. If you can explain your statement, I will let it pass. If not, you shall die.” “Speaking as a wheelwright,” he replied, “I look at the matter in this way; when I am making a wheel, if my stroke is too slow, then it bites deep but is not steady; if my stroke is too fast, then it is steady, but it does not go deep. The right pace, neither slow nor fast, cannot get into the hand unless it comes from the heart. It is a thing that cannot be put into words [rules]; there is an art in it that I cannot explain to my son. That is why it is impossible for me to let him take over my work, and here I am at the age of seventy, still making wheels. In my opinion it must have been the same with the men of old. All that was worth handing on, died with them; the rest, they put into their books. That is why I said that what you were reading was the lees and scum of by­gone men.”

[ii] He offered the New York Times Crossword puzzle as a good metaphor for the real multi-domain, holistic fluency mastering Munger's Mental Models requires. "Those [who] can complete it must have massive knowledge across multiple domains: the English language, literature, pop culture, etc. Bring anything less than that broad domain base of understanding, and it can’t be done." He thought this a good metaphor because it's easily recognized as a yes or no proposition: one either has sufficient knowledge or one doesn't. "If you don’t," he added, "no dice."  

[iii] At the most recent Berkshire Hathaway shareholders meeting, Warren Buffett referred to the nonagenarian as his “canary in the coalmine”.  “Most 90-year old men are gone soon enough,” Munger shot back. Buffett looked amused, as the veracity of that statement sank into the crowd and said, "The canary has spoken."

[iv] I disagree with Munger on both of these points. To provide my argument as to why in brief, because there’s still a tremendous amount of work that people would need to undertake to learn even with him—or someone like him—explicitly providing instruction in the mental models and how to use them. I also think it’s possible to learn and teach because Munger did it—and lamented the fragmentary, haphazard approach he had to use to obtain the understanding he has achieved. Why would people be worse off in their pursuit of worldly wisdom if they had someone tell them what was possible and why (Yes, Charlie, WHY!) at the outset of their study?

[v] Admittedly, a pretty strong counterexample to my overall argument that Munger or a Munger protégé should teach the mental model approach! Perhaps Munger, by withholding his understanding is doing more to successfully get people engaged than he would even if he were to write a book and teach classes from now until his dying day.