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Apprenticeship Pattern "Breakable Toys"

This week, I will be exploring another apprenticeship pattern, which is “Breakable Toys.” I briefly mentioned this pattern in my last post, and I thought it was worth revisiting.

The professor of my capstone, Dr. Wurst, had suggested for us to try to create something, even if it wasn’t exactly what we were trying to do. This would allow us to dive deep into learning one thing.

The term he used for what he was talking about was “spike,” which I isn’t exactly the same as this pattern, but it certainly is a similar idea. This pattern more pertains to doing projects on your own time to learn from your mistakes.

In school, it wouldn’t make sense to turn in projects that don’t work. It would be hard to pass most classes if I did. In many cases, school or work, failure is not an option. Of course the authors don’t advocate experimenting with those projects. They would rather you learn independently so that you can apply the skills you pick up.

For the past few blogs, I have talked about being more proactive. I have made a conscious effort, but it has been hard keeping it up. I have to realize that change doesn’t happen overnight, and it’s good to take these setbacks in stride to avoid being discouraged.

In the pattern, it uses the analogy of someone learning to juggle. I once read a study where of those instructed to juggle just five minutes a day, all of the participants were able to juggle by the end of the study. Reading this was enough to encourage me to try this experiment for myself. I set a timer for five minutes everyday, and I was able to pick it up after a few weeks.

The important thing to note is that five minutes was the minimum I set for myself, but I would invariably go for much longer than that. Currently I do not have any side projects that I am actively pursuing. If I were to set a five minute minimum to do something, although it would be small, it would be far better than nothing. I’m willing to bet most days it turn into much, much longer segments of time than five minutes.
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