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Remembering to teach the profoundly familiar
The semester I co-taught Data Viz at SIUE, I struggled more than seemed sensible to get the students to write readme files. They would turn in their assignments, but never tell me what libraries I’d need installed or what magic combo of make files were needed to compile their code… and then they’d get mad when they didn’t get credit. It was not pleasant for any of us, and in a moment of “Let’s go old school” I assigned them to, “Write instructions for an alien new to Edwardsville to follow to make a peanut butter & jelly sandwich. Include where to get peanut butter and every other detail.” While I thought I was teaching the kids to think through why readmes matter, it turned out I was going to be the one learning a super important lesson on both how to word questions and on what assumptions to make.
There was a kid from central Africa in the class. I can’t remember which nation anymore. What I remember is his answer to the test question: “I am the alien new to Edwardsville.” As a non-native, he neither knew where one would get peanut butter, nor how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
I ended up throwing out the question and we all moved on with a better understanding of how to write readme files and why they are so important.
Every one of us contains a world of information that is specific to our lived…
