Stumped by a test or a challenge? Throw Spaghetti Against the Wall!

My son was worried about an essay test he had to take in his 9^th grade history class. “What if I didn’t study the right things?” he asked me.

We were standing in the parking lot in front of the school.  It was too early in the morning to give a well-reasoned answer – and too late for Kurt to do any additional prep.  I blurted out some advice, which is based on the theory that it’s better to focus on what you know rather than what you don’t know.  “Throw spaghetti against the wall!” I said, in as cheerful a voice as I could muster.  “If the question asks for 2 names or dates or wars, and you don’t know both answers, write down what you do know about the situation or time period. Maybe Dr. Piercy will see that you know the subject, and give you credit.”

Just then my friend Tina Steck, another 9^th grade mom who is an attorney who once worked for the World Bank in Washington, D.C., walked up with her son.  “I’m telling Kurt to use the ‘throw spaghetti at the wall’ technique to take Dr. Piercy’s history test,” I told her.

Tina laughed and rolled her eyes.  “Hah!” she laughed, “the ‘throw spaghetti against the wall’ technique got me through law school,” she told the boys.  Suddenly they were all ears. 

Lenny Toups, another mom and an actual “Rocket Scientist” (an MIT engineer and consultant at Raytheon), walked up to us with her son Jason.  We explained what we were advising the kids.

“Oh yes!” Lenny said seriously. “One time I went into a physics test at MIT,” Lenny said, “and when I looked at the test, I realized I had studied entirely the wrong thing.  I didn’t know how to get the answer and there was only one huge question on the test.  I was dead.  So after I took 10 minutes to take deep breaths to calm down, I decided to write down everything I knew.  I wrote down the information that was given, and the safe assumptions, and basic physics laws.  I actually had a substantial amount of information.  Then I gave some proposed ways of solving the problem.  I got a decent grade on that test!  SO yeah, “Throw Spaghetti Against the Wall and See what Sticks!” 

The boys were sold.  They embraced the technique and excelled.  It’s been 8 years since that day, and my son still sometimes throws spaghetti against the wall.  The moral of the story?  You know more than you think you do.