There’s an expression, nature abhors a vacuum.
That is, nature resists low pressure vacuums and will always try to remove or balance them, as in weather systems.
There are many ways of deliberately creating a vacuum zone of lower pressure. For instance, a vacuum-cleaner’s motor is designed to make a low-pressure zone that’s removed by sucking air and debris up a tube.
You’ll already know a suitable answer to the following question.
Q. How do fixed-wing aircraft defy gravity to stay aloft when flying?
A: The off-set shape of a wing’s upper and lower surfaces is designed to create a pressure difference when air is forced around it. Low pressure occurs on the curved top-side from faster moving air, providing anti-gravity lift.
If you have ever been in a position to view the tips of an aircraft’s wings as a passenger, try answering the following.
Q: During take-off do the plane’s wing tips get higher or lower with reference to its fuselage?
A: Higher because during flight wings have to support the aircraft’s weight which on the ground rests on its undercarriage.
Here’s a little imaginative exercise. What could happen if one aircraft’s wing was detached from a plane’s fuselage and placed into a vertical position?
Moreover, keep this wing’s general shape and substitute fabric for metal. If we then support this modified vertical wing in a boat, we have a basic sail design. So?
You’ve all seen a sail boat using a following wind, sometimes with a huge spinnaker billowing out in front.
Now for a tough question: Is that air-filled spinnaker catching a tail-wind pushing from behind, or is the boat being pulled forward by low pressure created in front of a slightly angled filled-out sail?
Yes, it’s both; they co-occur. That’s all very well to account for movement provided from a following wind filling a large spinnaker sail.
Let’s now consider how a sail-boat moves forward into a head wind. That’s achieved by tacking, maneuvering the boat back and forth across an imaginary head-wind center line. Simultaneously, sails have to be trimmed into a wing shape. Then, there’s rudder steerage to be added. This triple combination is aimed at making air flow much faster over the sail’s contoured surface producing lower pressure in the front which drags the boat forward. Once again, this is utilizing nature’s way of trying to balance things out.
By now you may well be asking what this metaphor of wind and pressures over specially curved wing-like surfaces has to do with learning.
We have two scenarios before us. What’s chosen depends on a presenting wind’s direction and where the learner wants to end up when reaching their intended goal.
First, there’s plain sailing from a following-wind. This is like level one learning levers, of finding wind patterns and using these to move along almost effortlessly, going with the flow.
In olden days when sailing boats circumnavigated the globe, mariners selected those coming from behind as favorable trade-winds.
Secondly, anybody going against the prevailing wind, for instance by seeking an alternative personal goal, needs a particular set of mental tools and skills. Without these they’d likely drift, be turned around and pushed back. To continue ahead they’d need to know how to trim sails and work the rudder for getting the most from what’s coming at them face on. In short, they have to apply skills for making and using a pressure difference.
Isn’t that a wonderful analogy for learning when mental and physical effort is required? In this scenario learning is a matter of managing pressure.
What’s the take home message? When heading into the wind, tack wisely, trim the sails and apply the rudder to gain advantage. It’s then you can rely on lower pressure for drawing you forward naturally to navigate progress.
Got it? If you have a goal that’s contrary to what others are demanding then take control of head winds by tacking, to force air across an imaginary wing-shape. This will help power sustainable learning. It allows you to pull away from others’ relentless bombardment of high-pressure omni-direction forces.
Take action.
Work deliberately toward your goal and deflect pressure against a contoured wing-shape by tacking. Then you’ll fly ahead.
The necessary deflection tool is what we call a learning lever. Of importance is how these levers are used.
It takes skill for making learning levers work for channeling low pressure and achieve a winning edge.
Learning happens quite naturally from selecting and applying relevant fit-for-purpose cognitive deflection levers.
[Prepared and written by John@designschool.ac.nz, one of the course designers, without any assistance from AI GPT]