You Don’t Say. Part Two

On a blustery winter morning in the early years of the war, the American engineer, Abraham Wald is shown hundreds of crippled planes that have limped back to an airfield in Southern England. The planes have been painted red in the area in which they have been struck by flak (Fliegerabwehrkanone) from the German 88 mm cannons. B-17 Flying Fortresses, B-24 Liberators, and B-26 Marauders litter the airfield, the red paint like blood over the gaping holes in the shredded metal.

Wald was a theoretical mathematician. A devout Jew growing up in Hungary early in the 20th century, he could not attend school on Saturday and was home schooled by his parents. After the war, he worked with other mathematicians at Columbia and including the young Milton Friedman and John von Neumann, arguably the best mathematician on his age.

American Generals were surprised at Wald’s answer when they asked him where the planes should be reinforced so that British and American boys would be able to make it back safely from their bombing runs over Germany. After Wald had examined each plane carefully, he pointed to a spot where none of the planes had been painted red.

“That’s where to reinforce the planes,” he said.

“None of the planes in the entire airfield have been damaged there,” the generals sputtered.

“The planes that were hit in that spot?” Wald explained. “Those are the ones that didn’t come back.”

***

Which brings us back to Esmerelda’s fiance, Earlham, and the two black marbles. As you remember, Earlham is standing in the middle of the coliseum with his hand in the bag. The bag contains two black marbles. If he pulls out a white marble, he marries his intended and they live happily ever after. If he pulls out the black marble, he is tiger food. What does he do?

Earlham reaches into the bag and pulls out a black marble. Keeping his hand closed, he puts the marble in his mouth. And swallows it!

Turning to the guards, the 80,000 spectators, and the King, he says, “The marble left in the bag is black. Therefore, the one I chose, the one I swallowed, must be white.”

***

In the summer of 1941, an English POW is able to painstakingly assemble a working radio receiver out of bits of metal and scraps of wire. After hundreds of hours of work, however, he is only able to tune in to one English speaking station, a farm report of all things. Desperate for news of the war, the prisoners instead listen to a stream of commodity prices. How is London holding up with the bombings? Has Germany conquered more European countries? All they can hear is information about the price of pork and the value of vegetable crops.

The distraught soilder apologizes to his commanding officer: “I’m sorry, Sir. I can’t get any information about the war; Hour after hour of the farm report is all I can get.”

“Well done soldier,” his C.O. replies. “We know that England still stands. Were that not the case, we wouldn’t be getting any information in English.”

***

What do these three stories–the two black marbles, Van Neumann and the damaged airplanes, and the one-station radio–have in common? And what do these stories have to do with my usual topics of parenting and education? Only this: that what your children aren’t saying about their academics and their whereabouts may be much more important than what they are stating. “I like math” may be a euphemism for “I can’t read.” “I want to stay in my room and play video games” may be code for “I have trouble making friends.”

It is as important to listen to what is not said as it is to be sensitive to what is explicitly stated.

After all, you don’t have to be Sherlock Holmes to know that “Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.”

I welcome your stories about “listening between the lines.”