Too little
A tidy overstatement
“It always works like this.”
The learner is given certainty the example cannot support.
Exactitude
Keep the small qualification that prevents a large misunderstanding.
Dispositional fidelity to the particulars and limits of what one observes or represents.
Exactitude takes care that a statement or action fits the relevant particulars. Teaching often requires simplification. Exactitude keeps the distinction that makes a simplified account faithful rather than making every explanation as elaborate as possible.
Exactitude gives a simple account that stays true
Your diagram is wonderfully clear. Unfortunately, it is clear partly because the inconvenient exception has vanished. A tiny “usually” might spoil the symmetry of the slide and save the meaning of the lesson.
Finding the balance in Exactitude
An illustrative everyday situation
You prepare a simple explanation whose rule works in the chosen example but not in every case.
A fitting response
A useful qualification
“In this example it works this way. Here is the limit to remember.”
The simplification preserves the condition that matters now.
Pursued too far
Every caveat at once
“Before we begin, here are twenty-seven exceptions.”
Precision is pursued without regard to what the learner can use.
Precision is relevant detail in the right place, not maximum detail in every sentence.
When the situation changes
If omitting a condition would make the practice unsafe or fundamentally false, do not postpone that condition. Choose a simpler example instead.
What Exactitude makes possible
A learner can use an explanation while knowing where it stops. They can later extend it without discovering that a confident slogan had to be unlearned first.
Exactitude in ordinary life
A surprising counterexample
A learner brings an example that breaks the rule. You enjoy the chance to make the rule more accurate.
An approximate picture
You label a diagram as a sketch rather than asking its proportions to do work they cannot do.
Nearby virtues, different work
Intellectual Honesty
Intellectual Honesty revises a preferred belief; exactitude keeps the revised explanation faithful to the details.
Diligence
Diligence supplies the sustained checking that an accurate example may need.
Exactitude and its counterfeits
Counterfeit: Jargon as precision
A cloud of technical words can counterfeit exactitude while concealing an unclear claim. Explain what each necessary term changes.
Counterfeit: Pedantry without purpose
Correcting every incidental phrase may imitate exactitude while missing the learning task. Attend to the distinction that matters.
How to cultivate Exactitude
Identify the condition your example depends on.
Check words such as always, never and exactly against what you actually mean.
Offer one counterexample when it usefully marks the boundary.
Try it today
Do not simplify away safeguards or limits in specialist matters. Use ordinary examples and stay within competence; a teaching illustration is not a professional procedure.
Review one familiar explanation. Add or clarify the single qualification most likely to prevent a mistaken conclusion.
When helping someone learn
Keep the qualification that makes an explanation true.
Questions worth returning to
Which omitted detail changes the meaning?
Which detail am I adding mainly to display expertise?
Keep the practice proportionate
Do not simplify away safeguards or limits in specialist matters. Use ordinary examples and stay within competence; a teaching illustration is not a professional procedure.
About these practices · DisclaimerQuotations and further reading
Seven selections to return to through the week. Follow a source link to read the surrounding passage.
the carefully chosen words must be the most simple it is possible to find, and must refer to the truth.
Montessori connects simple words with truth. A shorter explanation still owes the learner the qualification that keeps it accurate.
What the superior man requires, is just that in his words there may be nothing incorrect.
Confucius · Analects · XIII.3.7; Confucius speaking · James Legge translation · excerpt
The Analects connects language with correctness. In teaching, identify exactly what a term is intended to mean in this task.
Read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider.
Francis Bacon · Essays · Of Studies · excerpt
Bacon asks the reader to weigh and consider. Check a source before turning its careful claim into a classroom slogan.
He who knows only his own side of the case, knows little of that.
John Stuart Mill · On Liberty · II, Of the Liberty of Thought and Discussion · excerpt
Mill warns that one-sided knowledge is thin knowledge. An exception may mark the true scope of an otherwise useful rule.
It implies withdrawal from some things in order to deal effectively with others,
William James · The Principles of Psychology, vol. I · XI, Attention; p. 404 · excerpt
James’s selective attention helps distinguish relevant detail from exhaustive detail. Precision need not list every caveat at once.
or it so appears to me at present.
Benjamin Franklin · Autobiography · Part II, plan of moral perfection; Humility discussion · excerpt
Franklin’s tentative phrase makes the speaker’s present judgment visible. A qualification can protect accuracy rather than weaken the explanation.
A constant source of misunderstanding and mistake is indefiniteness of meaning.
John Dewey · How We Think · chapter IX, Meaning: or Conceptions and Understanding; p. 129 · excerpt
Dewey identifies indefinite meaning as a source of error. A learner needs to know which sense of the word the example uses.
Continue exploring
Take these ideas into everyday life
Read freely, follow the nineteen-virtue program, or adapt this collection in My Virtues. These practices concern your own choices, not a learner’s performance.