Saturday, August 29, 2009 6:53 PM,

A student writes:



	Hello Dr. Patt,

	I'm ***************** and I am in your 306 class. I had a question 
	about something on the homework.

	Are black boxes only limited to addition and multiplication? 

	Thanks,
	<<name withheld to protect the student who did not read the problem>>



The student is referring to Problem 2 on the current problem set, and in 
paraticular, that part of the problem dealing with finding an average.

My knee-jerk response is always to answer a student's question.  Sometimes I 
can be more helpful to the student by not doing so.  This is one of those 
times.

So, rather than answer the question, I will say, Please read carefully the 
statement of the problem.

In general I do answer thoroughly student questions - as you will discover, 
sometimes TOO thoroughly.  But if I am going to succeed in helping you learn, 
I need to have you deal with your confusion seriously first, BEFORE asking for 
help.  Then, if you still need help, my TAs and I are ready to help.

Good luck with the problem set and EE 306. 

Yale Patt