Or – How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Blue Rule
I have a colleague (thanks Patrick) who has a “Club Theory” for how we teach a discipline.
It involves a metaphorical CLUB with distinct bumps in it.
Each discipline has their own Special CLUB with bumps deemed appropriate for that discipline.
When WE were students, we were repeatedly hit over the head with this CLUB until the dents in our skulls mirrored those in the CLUB.
There has even been some musing, especially with students that choose to go into some specialty programs with stiff admission requirements or high attrition, (engineering, medicine) that they might already have some of those particular bumps.
The Club Theory holds that this is why they gravitate to that field in the first place: they ‘fit in’, so success is in that field is not ‘quite so painful’.
When we become teachers, we are presented with THE CLUB, and can proceed to beat our OWN students over the head until they too have all the appropriate dents.
This is kind of the opposite of the Golden Rule:
The BLUE Rule:
Do unto others what was done unto you.
And, in case you are wondering,
YES, I have THOSE dents*.
*The Computer Science Geek dents.
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