I think this is some of the best advice that the Apprenticeship Patterns have to offer. Stagnating in the learning process is an incredibly difficult problem to resolve, as learning is such a unique process to each individual person. I learn quite differently from my brother, while he and I learn wildly different from my father. With such a discrepancy even within a family, I think this is a very poignant point to address. From a personal standpoint, I’ve certainly experienced this phenomenon to an extensive degree. My ability to intake new information varies drastically based on how interesting I find the topic.
As the author mentions, “Dave’s not knowing stance helped him to collaborate with the family to find solutions as a team.” I find this to be invaluable advice; maybe I’m a little jaded, but I believe most people have no idea how much they don’t actually know. The capacity of people to not understand how uninformed they may be on certain topics genuinely shocks me sometimes. Even worse, this type of person often thinks other people are wrong when they are woefully uneducated on whatever the topic may be. Apologies for ranting about this for so long; it’s genuinely one of the most frustrating things I find about the modern era. I blame the internet honestly.
I don’t want to claim I’m an expert on people, but this is something common I’ve frequently observed in various jobs or interactions. To step off my high horse for a minute, I generally tend to regard myself as an idiot in most situations – not even as a self-deprecation thing. I find that humility in knowledge is one of the most valuable traits that anyone can have, in literally every situation. Akin to “not wanting to be the smartest person in a room,” I think there is, without a doubt, ALWAYS something that can be gleaned from a dispute or conversation. After opening up my biases or assumptions in some ways, my opinions have been drastically changed in ways I could have never predicted. Even if one is an expert at something, I find it incredibly important to maintain this white belt mindset.
I realize I’ve definitely deviated from the original point of the pattern, but because I’m so adamant about this type of subject I felt the need to rant a little bit. Thanks for coming to my Ted talk.
From the blog CS@worcester – Dummies that Code by howbrash and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.