Playful Play: How to Learn More at Work
Somehow, the animals are always first to know
In the dusty old days of the 3rd century BC, at Ptolemy’s university in Alexandria, Euclid is teaching a class.
The great Greek geometrist is working through his Elements with a group of impatient beginners. Euclid teaches the very first proposition in the lengthy list that stretches to 13 books of detailed material:
Proposition 1: To construct an equilateral triangle on a given finite straight line.
One restive upstart in the class raises his hand:
“Now that I have learned that, what is my profit?”
Euclid scratches his beard (probably) and gestures to a servant, before demanding in clear irritation:
“Give him threepence, for he must always make a profit of what he learns.”
Our desire to draw a straight line from ‘learning’ to ‘earning’ is nothing new.
Euclid knew it, and he was on more than nodding terms with the merits of a straight line.
Yet he understood that the acquisition and application of knowledge are rarely linear.
His Elements of Geometry is a pedagogical masterclass that starts with the dot, then the line, then layers on more complex…
