I had an Elementary school teacher that gave us a similar exercise to the rock thing. She said something like "imagine I'm an alien, and tell me how to make a p

I had an Elementary school teacher that gave us a similar exercise to the rock thing. She said something like "imagine I'm an alien, and tell me how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich". I got so caught up in sharing my special technique I had at the time (extra glob of PB in the middle after covering both sides) that I just got a bit deflated when she stopped me to ask what I meant by what seemed like a basic step. (It was something like "okay, I have the bread", and I hadn't asked her to pick up the knife before applying the peanut butter) Oddly I don't remember the point of the exercise at all, or if we did anything building on it. We certainly didn't do any programming.