Sequential Problem Solving | Page 4

and be prepared for dealing with life's villains. They
can thus achieve peace and joy, and can be prepared for making life's
hard decisions as well.
Young people often dream of a loving spouse and joyful children.

Older people dream of success in business. Still others dream of
securing a suitable retirement. Whatever the age or the dream, the
problems, of making dreams come true, share some similarities.
People solving problems share certain common steps in resolving those
problems and face certain common difficulties. How do we develop
solutions? Where do we get information to work with? Who should we
trust for advise? At what point should we make a decision? What are
the alternatives?
Study leads to success, and organization builds bridges to the future.
Organized systematic thinking requires effort, and the effort is justified
by predictable success. This is contrasted to happenstance decision
making based on impulsiveness and wishful thinking. Sequential
Problem Solving is about organized thinking, and justifying decisions
based on solid facts, rather than on impulsiveness or emotional
indulgence. Growing to maturity is about planning rather than acting on
impulses or instant gratification. Instant gratification often has costly
consequences that forethought might have averted. Sequential Problem
Solving is about making dreams come true while minimizing the
hidden costs.
I remember well the magic of that first romantic glance across a
crowded ballroom, the guileless smile and downcast eyes that
instantaneously made my heart skip a beat. I remember the soul stirring
melody of Band of Gold and the lingering smell of peaches and the
gentle winds against my ears on a pleasant summer night. Sequential
Problem Solving is about memories and dreams, making them come
true, and keeping them alive.
Sequential Problem Solving is about becoming both a success and a
lifelong-learner. Problem solving has two aspects: physical problems in
a scientific environment and personal problems in a spiritual inner
world. This book uses well known classical literary selections as
models for personal decision making and character development. These
works were chosen primarily due to their ready availability.
Part of the fun of sequential problem solving is mentally rewriting

stories to have more favorable outcomes. We imagine favorable
outcomes naturally, but successful people do so in a more systematic
fashion, that makes logical outcomes more certain. Using realistic logic
rather than wishful emotion requires that we know ourselves, know our
values and where they came from, and know clearly what our basic
goals are in life. Sequential Problem Solving systematically outlines
those aspects of our spiritual inner selves that play a part in our
decision making and, largely, determine our success.
Sequential Problem Solving explores the nature of personal internal
conflict and how literary characters change in the course of stories to
overcome personal weaknesses. Successful learners learn to recognize
their own internal conflicts and learn that courage is a skill anyone can
learn to re-direct their own destiny.
The first step in the adventure of becoming courageous is to write down
a philosophy of life: what we want to achieve and how we plan to treat
other people. A few words will do: I want to be happy, healthy, wealthy,
have a loving companion, help others, etc.
Everyone should develop, write down, and periodically review their
philosophy of life. If we are going to be successful, we need to have a
systematic way of going about it. What do we know today about
effective ways of becoming educated and successful?
At this point in time, my own philosophy for education has 11 parts.
First, learning has three basic components: specialized knowledge,
basic thinking skills, and mature thinking skills.[1] In the study of
Dickens' Great Expectations, "specialized knowledge" includes Pip's
turbulent relationship to his sister and to her husband Joe. "Basic
thinking skills" include the student's memorization of the various
characters and the sequence of the plot in the story. "Mature thinking
skills" include the student's analysis of Pip's internal conflict and how
Pip overcomes his internal weaknesses. Mature skills might also
include the creation of an alternative ending of how the story could
have achieved an even more satisfactory ending. This story is unique in
that there are two published endings: one, the author's original ending,

and the second written at the insistence of the author's newspaper editor.
These alternative endings illustrate how we can create an alternative
environment and make our dreams come true. Sequential Problem
Solving is about finding alternative solutions to problems and
executing well researched plans.
Second, students learn to trust their own ability through success, and
the teacher can help to insure that success. Success can be assured by
tailoring the curriculum to the student. The student with severe prior
knowledge deficits can usually be rapidly remediated by learning basic
thinking skills first: for instance, the basic memorization techniques,
note taking, outlining, and