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Archives for August 2015

Pair Programming? Pair Teaching!

August 18, 2015 Leave a Comment

With a circle, the kids run around and around!

The summer is coming to an end, with the kids heading back to school this week. It is at this time that I tend to ponder areas of improvement in the system.

I feel particularly fortunate. The pre-school that my kids go through allows you to spend most of the time in a lovely backyard atmosphere. One day when I was dropping Sam off, I distinctively remember smiling over the fact that I didn’t want to leave. Surely that is a good sign, and can be quite different than many of the grey boxes that we call schools. Fortunately there are a lot of interesting layouts that play to kids nature.

I wonder if we are missing the big picture, and suffer from a school system aimed at the industrial age of the past.

At the same time, when I come down to Earth, it seems like there are smaller changes that we can employ (and some schools and societies already do) right now.

We are asking a lot of that teacher!

Single Point of Failure

As an engineer, when you look at a classroom situation one of the most glaringly scary things is the single point of failure that is the teacher. This one decision will make a huge difference to an entire school year of your child’s life in elementary school.

The quality of the teacher is one thing, but in my few years with kids at school we have run into illness, pregnancy, and a teacher leaving half way through the school year.

Every classroom should have more than one teacher. This year, there is a chance that my kindergartner gets such as class, as one of the three rooms has two teachers who split their time.


Ben and Dion

It is the day before school kicks in, and I am picturing what that is like for a teacher. I am sure there is a lot going on in your mind. I have had the pleasure of working closely with my best mate for a decade now, and I know that it is a lot more comforting, and enjoyable to be chatting with him before we go on stage for a talk. You know that someone has your back. You have confidence. You know that if you make a mistake your buddy can pick up on it.

Shared Nothing?

There are multiple ways to read the sharing of a classroom. If you think of it as having multiple teachers in the same class then the question of cost comes up quickly. Although I believe we should be funding the schools to a point where they could double down, it isn’t possible to just hire twice as many teachers right now, even if we can show that this cost is more than recouped by society over time.

What if you aren’t doubled up, but rather do a class swap? This is exactly what Emily did one year. She was in charge of the math and science aspects and another teacher took the social sciences. This was huge for the teachers, as they had to prepare and master half of the material. I also think it was better for the students as they got to experience different teachers and some of the classes had had a run through of the material. I know that for one of my presentations, the third time is often the best (rarely one of the first two!)

The other option doesn’t split on topic and involve a swap, but allows teachers to be part time. The students once again get the benefit from different teachers, styles and strengths, and the teachers get to work together. Being able to spend time discussing their plan of attack, what they are teaching, and how to best help particular students can only be a good thing.

Master and Apprentice

When you pair up teachers you also get a great way to bring up young energetic talent. A master teacher can bring their experience to the table, and I would love to see the impact this would have on teachers dropping out of the profession.

It’s time to take the lonely out of teaching. We talk about pair programming and discuss various side effects in engineering. I am not religious about pairing, and have seen it misused, but I do know that I very much want to talk through hard problems and various solutions with others. This would only become more important if it allowed me to focus on students more.

It is always interesting to join the streams. What else can we learn from the practice of engineering and science when it comes to setting up school systems that can scale and be resilient?


ps. I also wish that our kindergartener wouldn’t be coming home at 11:45am to start with, given that his pre-school had him staying a lot later.

Micro-progressions: You can do one more this week

August 11, 2015 Leave a Comment


“Are you up for a 30 day plank challenge?”

If I utter those words to anyone in my family I am sure to get eyes to roll (see: kale, quinoa, charcuterie ;). Holding a plank is an interesting feat as it squarely hits up against not just the physical, but also mental strength.

All physical activity requires a mental component, but holding one position, as with a plank, hits up against boredom and the lack of a distraction. For this reason alone it isn’t an activity for everyone.

Why am I talking about bloody planking? I ran across two stories involving a plank back to back in my stream:

#1 Plank World Record

https://youtu.be/0xr5FxGGn1o

The world record for a forearm plank was recently set by George Hood. The former marine blew past five hours to hit five hours, 15 minutes and 15 seconds. Think about that for a second. OVER FIVE HOURS.

I can’t even imagine the fortitude to pull this off and continue to fight your brain saying “ok mate, that’s enough isn’t it?”

#2 The Eventbrite Engineering Daily Plank

Natalie Downe posted a photo of an engineering team with the message:

The Eventbrite Engineering daily plank, we are up to 86 seconds! 2 seconds added each day!

It was interesting to see the comments that came in. There were negative folk complaining that this is goofy, and questioning what if people don’t want to do this on the team… won’t they feel peer pressure?

Settle down chaps. A regular plank is a good thing for you, and it changes the tone to try something new like this. They were at 86 seconds, which is respectable but far from out of everyones range. What is particularly smart is the small addition. If you can hold a plank for $X seconds, surely you can do so for $X+2 the following day!

The group is using the power of micro-progression, as well as the good side of peer pressure. You are much less likely to stop early if you have people around you holding on. Good on them for getting the blood flowing.


Milo and Micro-progression

When looking for long term success: with investment compound interest is king and elsewhere I look to micro-progression to build habits.

Don’t just be like Mike, be like Milo of Croton. He had legendary strength that was allegedly partly due to the ultimate strength progression:

“He was said to have achieved the feat of lifting the bull by starting in childhood, lifting and carrying a newborn calf and repeating the feat daily as it grew to maturity.”

With fitness I track daily push-ups, adding a single push a week (Suneel’s 50 a day is good too!). I also enjoy working out at an Orange Theory gym where I raise my base pace by 0.1mph a week. These are small increments that continue to slowly push you without burning you out.

I have found these amounts to be very mental. With push-ups for example, I got sick while on a trip to Mexico and had to hit pause. It was tough to jump right back in where I was, so I had to reset and rebuild. This can be frustrating but I try to remember that it is important to not sweat the chain breaking.

I also think about how this relates to my kids. I watch my young-uns doing the monkey bars and think: “keep this up and you will always be able to do it.” I get particularly jealous when I see my youngest squat with perfect form, and I lament giving up that flexibility (something very much to work on).

This is the year that we introduce musical instruments to the family. I am going to start small. Sit down at the piano for 5 minutes a day and you are golden. Once the habit is in place, and they feel successful, we will start to boil the frog.

Where else should I be looking to boil? Team velocity? 🙂

Letdown

August 7, 2015 Leave a Comment


I was enjoying some brussels sprouts and charcuterie with Tobias Peggs right after my last day of work. School was finishing up and the summer break was ahead of me. I could sense many feelings over the change. What do I do next? I will have so much mental energy to channel without the old burdens!

“Mate, you need a real break. Trust me, your body is going to go into a real letdown as the adrenalin that was powering you along disapates.”

Tobias is a serial entrepreneur, who I have known for some time, even before he joined my old team at Walmart through the acquisition of OneRiot. Since then he went on to run Aviary, sell that to Adobe, and now he is back to another venture (where brussels sprouts are involved!)

A letdown?

I had worked hard to keep my energy high, and I was coming out of an intense situation. Surely I will be bouncing off the walls with all of the space I will have?

But Tobias was right. For one, your mind doesn’t forget work that quickly. Weening off of it felt like practicing meditation for me. I would catch myself thinking about some work problem and remind myself:

“You aren’t responsible for that any more. The team will be able to work it out just fine. They are awesome.”

Over time longer periods would go by between these thoughts. There are still some triggers now: someone reaching out, or morning work outs where I used to plan my day and think about my direct reports. But even these are fading.



And then there were the naps

I was tired. Partly it turns out that running after kids is more physical work than a desk job (even with walking 1:1’s and a standing desk :), but mentally I do think my body was taking the opportunity to regroup.

About a month later I felt it. An intense joy and feeling of top energy. My mind was clear and I was ready to take on new challenges.

I started to reflect on how rare it is to have the opportunity for a real break from a day job. Companies should mandate a break! Employees tend to be excited to join, and companies needed the role filled last month… So you give two weeks notice and get cracking.

The excitement for the new job kicks in and you don’t even realize that you really did need a real transition period.

I was fortunate enough to get this opportunity once before. John Lilly and Mozilla explicitly said “hey, take a month before joining so you are fully charged”. Wise words indeed. I am still very grateful.

I am partly writing this to help me to remember this the next time I transition, or the next time someone joins my team. It is never so important that someone has to join today. I will give myself and others the gift of time. Now I need to use this energy to dive in.

Have you ever experienced this? Do you have other transition advice?


Ps. There are always exceptions. For example, The folk who joined Google the day before the IPO were smart to make that happen.

Pps. Maybe it is OK to take that sabatical at work to get a recharge without a job change? 🙂

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The right thing to do, is the right thing to do.

The right thing to do, is the right thing to do.

Dion Almaer

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