{"id":21,"date":"2020-01-10T11:06:48","date_gmt":"2020-01-10T16:06:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.ideate.cmu.edu\/60-212\/f2020\/?page_id=21"},"modified":"2020-08-19T00:58:18","modified_gmt":"2020-08-19T04:58:18","slug":"social-rules","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/courses.ideate.cmu.edu\/60-212\/f2020\/syllabus\/social-rules\/","title":{"rendered":"Social Rules"},"content":{"rendered":"

To further remove obstacles to learning, in addition to the above Code of Conduct, we also have a small set of social rules for our class. The rules below have been quoted\/adapted from Hacker School\u2019s Social Rules<\/em>, and can be found online at https:\/\/www.recurse.com\/manual<\/a>. These rules are intended to be lightweight, and to make more explicit certain social norms that are normally implicit. Most of these social rules really boil down to \u201cdon\u2019t be a jerk\u201d or \u201cdon\u2019t be annoying.\u201d Of course, almost nobody sets out to be a jerk or annoying, so telling people not to be jerks isn\u2019t a very productive strategy. That\u2019s why our social rules are designed to curtail specific behavior known be destructive to a supportive, productive, and fun learning environment.<\/p>\n

A WORD ABOUT FEAR<\/h2>\n

An obstacle we try to remove is fear. We think this is one of the most pernicious impediments to education. In most of the world, but especially school and work, people are afraid of looking stupid. This fear frequently keeps us from asking important questions like \u201chow does that work?\u201d or even just \u201cwhy?\u201d Worse, it keeps us from saying \u201cI don\u2019t understand.\u201d That means many of us muddle on with a half-baked or entirely incorrect understanding of core concepts. This is particularly bad with programming, because these misunderstandings compound, and over time become harder and more embarrassing to admit to and address.<\/p>\n

Did you know there\u2019s a well-documented phenomenon in which highly qualified people go through life feeling like they\u2019re a bunch of frauds and don\u2019t deserve the things they\u2019ve achieved? It\u2019s common in work (\u201cI can\u2019t believe I made it past the interviews. Surely someone will figure out I\u2019m wildly incompetent and fire me soon!\u201d) and school (\u201cEveryone here is so much smarter than me. I got in on a fluke.\u201d). This is called impostor syndrome. This is why saying \u201cI don\u2019t know\u201d or \u201cI don\u2019t understand\u201d is a positive thing. It\u2019s an opportunity for you to learn something new, and for someone else to help you with it (or vise versa).<\/p>\n

NO FEIGNING SURPRISE<\/h2>\n

The first rule means you shouldn\u2019t act surprised when people say they don\u2019t know something. This applies to both technical things (\u201cWhat?! I can\u2019t believe you don\u2019t know what the stack is!\u201d) and\u00a0non-technical things (\u201cYou don\u2019t know who RMS is?!\u201d). Feigning surprise has absolutely no social or educational benefit: When people feign surprise, it\u2019s usually to make them feel better about themselves and others feel worse. And even when that\u2019s not the intention, it\u2019s almost always the effect. This rule is tightly coupled to our belief in the importance of people feeling comfortable saying \u201cI don\u2019t know\u201d and \u201cI don\u2019t understand.\u201d<\/p>\n

NO WELL-ACTUALLY<\/em>\u2019S<\/h2>\n

A well-actually<\/em> happens when someone says something that\u2019s almost \u2013 but not entirely \u2013 correct, and you say, \u201cwell, actually<\/em>\u2026\u201d and then give a minor correction. This is especially annoying when the correction has no bearing on the actual conversation. This doesn\u2019t mean our classroom isn\u2019t about truth-seeking or that we don\u2019t care about being precise. But many well-actually\u2019s are about grandstanding, not truth-seeking.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To further remove obstacles to learning, in addition to the above Code of Conduct, we also have a small set of social rules for our class. The rules below have been quoted\/adapted from Hacker School\u2019s Social Rules, and can be found online at https:\/\/www.recurse.com\/manual. These rules are intended to be lightweight, and to make more … Continue reading “Social Rules”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"parent":9,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.ideate.cmu.edu\/60-212\/f2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/21"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.ideate.cmu.edu\/60-212\/f2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.ideate.cmu.edu\/60-212\/f2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.ideate.cmu.edu\/60-212\/f2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.ideate.cmu.edu\/60-212\/f2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/courses.ideate.cmu.edu\/60-212\/f2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/21\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3937,"href":"https:\/\/courses.ideate.cmu.edu\/60-212\/f2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/21\/revisions\/3937"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.ideate.cmu.edu\/60-212\/f2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/9"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.ideate.cmu.edu\/60-212\/f2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}