8 ms·

A colleague of mine - his wife was a 3rd grade teacher. One day, he mentioned to her the process that we were doing. And she laughed. She showed him the daily

A colleague of mine - his wife was a 3rd grade teacher. One day, he mentioned to her the process that we were doing. And she laughed. She showed him the daily progress report. "What I did today? What I want to do tomorrow?" That her 3rd graders had to fill out everyday. Are programmers adults that need to be self-managed + micro-managed like 3rd graders?

ionfish 15y ago
> She showed him the daily progress report. "What I did today? What I want to do tomorrow?" That her 3rd graders had to fill out everyday. To be honest, it sounds just as insane—possibly more—that children have to do this kind of thing. There were fewer assessment exercises of this sort when I was in school, albeit appreciably more than my parents had to contend with. The main lesson I took away from them was to avoid, wherever possible, any job or career where I'd have to waste everyone's time pursuing such ridiculous make-work. I worry that the more we force this stuff on children from an early age, the more they will take it to be the normal (de jure, not de facto) state of affairs rather than an aberration stemming from the awful tendency to value managerial gestures over productive work.
- wallflower 15y ago
  Having graduated from grade school many decades before NCLB, I fear that adults are irrevocably changing education for the worse. Test taking isn't learning, yet it the main priority for many schools (especially poor ones).
  - protomyth 15y ago
    Its not like the colleges are any help here with the requirement to take the SAT, PSAT, or ACT for college admission. A student who doesn't know how to take a test isn't going to get the scholarships or even entrance to college. Poor schools have a lot of problems like poor materials (my brother's history text book had serious editing errors like "Abraham Lincoln was black.") and problems attracting good teachers. The problem seems to be bad enough that they, given the scores handed in, are even to the level of teaching for the tests. I don't see any real hope until parents are allowed to move the tuition money the state pays the schools to the school of their choice. Innovation is hard without choice.
- Daniel_Newby 15y ago
  "To be honest, it sounds just as insane—possibly more—that children have to do this kind of thing." That particular exercise is a way of practicing the connections between verbalization, logical reasoning about the future, and emotional desires. It sounds like an excellent way to help the top half of the IQ bell curve to work on projects bigger than will fit in their head overnight. As to wasted time, it should not take more than a few minutes a day, a bargain compared to the time spent on the party indoctrination in history and social studies.
techdmn 15y ago
Good thing they didn't ask this when I was in school: What I did today? -> Went to school. What I want to do tomorrow? -> Stay home and play nintendo. The second question is not quite honest, more accurately "What BS can I feed my teacher?" I view these questions as a way of attacking integrity, lie or face the consequences. One might argue this teaches a valuable skill. But I find it hard to stomach.
InclinedPlane 15y ago
Not everyone understands that scrum and agile have this heritage of coming from getting horribly managed projects worked on by extremely mediocre devs in the enterprise trenches on track.
fleitz 15y ago
They asked me in school what I wanted be when I grew up, I wrote "happy", they told me I didn't understand the assignment, I told them they didn't understand life.
- steverb 15y ago
  --John Lennon
  - fleitz 15y ago
    nice. I thought it was John Lennon but I couldn't find a reliable attribution.
AndrewDucker 15y ago
Everyone working in teams needs to share information about what they're doing with the rest of the team, so that they can work together. If the simplest way to do so is a brief "Yesterday I built 90% of Foo, but hit problem Bar, today I plan to finish Foo and start implementing BaseWidget" then that's great.

ionfish 15y ago

> She showed him the daily progress report. "What I did today? What I want to do tomorrow?" That her 3rd graders had to fill out everyday. To be honest, it sounds just as insane—possibly more—that children have to do this kind of thing. There were fewer assessment exercises of this sort when I was in school, albeit appreciably more than my parents had to contend with. The main lesson I took away from them was to avoid, wherever possible, any job or career where I'd have to waste everyone's time pursuing such ridiculous make-work. I worry that the more we force this stuff on children from an early age, the more they will take it to be the normal (de jure, not de facto) state of affairs rather than an aberration stemming from the awful tendency to value managerial gestures over productive work.

wallflower 15y ago
Having graduated from grade school many decades before NCLB, I fear that adults are irrevocably changing education for the worse. Test taking isn't learning, yet it the main priority for many schools (especially poor ones).
- protomyth 15y ago
  Its not like the colleges are any help here with the requirement to take the SAT, PSAT, or ACT for college admission. A student who doesn't know how to take a test isn't going to get the scholarships or even entrance to college. Poor schools have a lot of problems like poor materials (my brother's history text book had serious editing errors like "Abraham Lincoln was black.") and problems attracting good teachers. The problem seems to be bad enough that they, given the scores handed in, are even to the level of teaching for the tests. I don't see any real hope until parents are allowed to move the tuition money the state pays the schools to the school of their choice. Innovation is hard without choice.
Daniel_Newby 15y ago
"To be honest, it sounds just as insane—possibly more—that children have to do this kind of thing." That particular exercise is a way of practicing the connections between verbalization, logical reasoning about the future, and emotional desires. It sounds like an excellent way to help the top half of the IQ bell curve to work on projects bigger than will fit in their head overnight. As to wasted time, it should not take more than a few minutes a day, a bargain compared to the time spent on the party indoctrination in history and social studies.

techdmn 15y ago

Good thing they didn't ask this when I was in school: What I did today? -> Went to school. What I want to do tomorrow? -> Stay home and play nintendo. The second question is not quite honest, more accurately "What BS can I feed my teacher?" I view these questions as a way of attacking integrity, lie or face the consequences. One might argue this teaches a valuable skill. But I find it hard to stomach.

InclinedPlane 15y ago

Not everyone understands that scrum and agile have this heritage of coming from getting horribly managed projects worked on by extremely mediocre devs in the enterprise trenches on track.

fleitz 15y ago

They asked me in school what I wanted be when I grew up, I wrote "happy", they told me I didn't understand the assignment, I told them they didn't understand life.

steverb 15y ago
--John Lennon
- fleitz 15y ago
  nice. I thought it was John Lennon but I couldn't find a reliable attribution.

AndrewDucker 15y ago

Everyone working in teams needs to share information about what they're doing with the rest of the team, so that they can work together. If the simplest way to do so is a brief "Yesterday I built 90% of Foo, but hit problem Bar, today I plan to finish Foo and start implementing BaseWidget" then that's great.