Expose Your Ignorance

For this week, I continued reading the Apprenticeship Pattern and the first one that I got into is “Expose Your Ignorance”. To simply explain this pattern, it encourages the readers to basically no being afraid of feeling ignorance and stupid when asking about what we don’t know.

The problem of this chapter is presented with an example of a work environment that requires the developer to be familiar with required with technologies, but we simply just don’t have any idea how to use it. I like how the author says that it happens to everyone because it is true that people can’t know everything and this would let the readers know that it is common, furthermore encourage them to not be afraid and expose their ignorance. With the question of how should one exposing himself/herself to be the most effective, the author gave us one simple solution, which is to show other people that you might not know about it, but you are willing to learn how to do it during the process of delivering software. Leading off as the author acknowledge the common feeling that the societies are increasingly dependent on the competence as a developer and we just have so many zones of ignorance, the author shows us that we still shouldn’t be afraid to tell people the truth despite feeling those pressure. According to him, to let people know that you are in the process of learning that particular technology is important to either build a strong relationship with people or build your own reputation of our learning ability. I would say that this is very true because the fact that people would appreciate the time that we put out to try to learn and use it properly rather than just lying about it and then forcefully use it the way it’s not intended to or finding a walkaround. The author then encourages us to ask questions and adopt the ability to learn as it is the easiest way to get to know something. It is rather an uncomfortable process, but it’s probably the most efficient way to learn in the end.

I can see myself completely agree with what the author said to exposing my own ignorance. I believe that it is what a lot of people in the past did in order to be at their position right now and I also believe that a lot of apprentice like us should not afraid to be judged and do the same, just to get ourselves better every day. I know that I myself do suffer from the fear of asking. Sure, I do want to learn, but I also want to prove to others that I know a lot too, and this chapter helps me to realize that actively learning is also another way to positively prove to other people, and I should not be avoiding it when needed.