Happy Coding-bootcamp Stories - #98 of 100 - When Students Quit Asking Questions
When coding assignments are difficult, questions are to be expected. Lots and lots of them. This stuff is hard.
This is a super happy story, but it started with a mystery:
One Day, No More Questions
It happened suddenly, in the fall of 2021.
OK, there were a very few questions, not zero. But something weird was happening, and all of a sudden, most of my students quit asking me questions.
Assignments were still being handed in, so it wasn't that they quit working. What could it be?
Personalities Always Rise to Top
Like any group learning situation, personalities of the specific students always color the whole environment.
Ethan was one such student. Attending meetings from a scaffold while laying brick during the day, and coding with a toddler on his knee at night, he was flying through the course in record time.
领英推荐
We've had several similar stories since then, but his was the most extreme in many ways. If you ever want to hire the most determined people in the world, you want to hire from a pool of Ethans.
Why did support requests suddenly cease? They didn't. Everyone just started asking Ethan. The other students liked it better because he was one of them. Ethan cemented his learning by teaching others. It took me weeks to figure it out, then Ethan graduated and everything returned to normal.
What Part of Me or You is This?
That part of each of us that is Ethan, determined, caring, perhaps even a touch irascible at times - that's the part that often drives us past our comfort zones and towards doing things that not only help ourselves, but also others.
Can it be Repeated?
Ethan set a pattern in 2021 that has been repeated many times since then, although it often looks radically different just because of personalities and changing contexts.
Helping other students was just a small part of what helped Ethan graduate quickly and find work in the industry.
Helping others was a factor in Ethan's success. And it sets a nice pattern for any of us to follow, in any learning context.