Before setting out to find the solution

From Finding in History the Right to Estimate by Shirley Brice Heath.

Yet, cognitive theorists, developmental psychologists, and anthropologists have shown repeatedly that formal educational learning has relatively little direct application to complex problem-solving or to the pragmatic reasoning and communication needs of adult life (Schwebel, et al., Sternberg and Frensch). A substantial reason for the failure of academic learning to carry over into other areas of life has to do with the fact that in formal education, problem-solving comes after someone else has constructed the problem. Learning beyond formal education comes more often through the need - for the individual in either isolation or in collaboration - to isolate, identify, and shape the problem before setting out to find solutions.