“You can lead a horse to water, but they’re awfully hard to drown.”

Who said that???? Were they joking? You know, its no wonder our profession is taken so UNprofessionally by the world. Ever ask a plumber to work weekends or overtime WITHOUT pay? Ever call an electrician in the middle of the night to discuss why your light switch burnt out? Sure, you could do those things but you will pay through the nose.

Us programmers? Its expected that we’ll work until 8pm every night and weekends without pay and be subject to the most absurd project schedules ever conceived by man.

And now this person wants us to teach everyone else so that we, wait – what? “get other developers to care?” How do you weed out the poor developers? How do you excel if everyone is at the same level? I’d love to see a managing partner in an attorney’s office tell his staff attorneys that they all must help each other and make each other care. Usually the weak ones get FIRED.

I man, KU-BY-YA already. This crap has to stop. We need to start charging for our time. Not even painters and musicians give away their time like we do. At least they traded their work for food and room and board.

Please. This is starting to sound like the email lists and boards with umpteen million topics titles “URGENT! HELP!!” from someone in India who was outsourced work from someone else in the USA and he doesnt know his butt from his elbow when it comes to .NET development. But he got the contract because he charges $11/hr instead of his “peer” in America who was charging $55/hr.

We’re supposed to teach these people, too, how to develop solid software? I think not. They can find another profession. The world needs ditch diggers too you know.

Perhaps you are correct in saying that my perception of the story is bias towards a lazy and unwilling student, rather than a jerk of a teacher :)

In short, the point I am trying to make with this post is from the teacher perspective and that everyone does not need to be a teacher all the time, even when presented with the opportunity to teach a valid student who has the correct level of integrity.

Great conversation, as I appreciate other ways of looking at this…

In contrast, isn’t eastern philosophy full of similar stories, but with different endings, where the persistence of the apprentice-to-be is rewarded in the end?

And to your Warren Buffet example: Should we disregard all developers coming to us for knowledge if they are not interested in the great feeling of playing around with architectures and algorithms, and are just interested in creating great software – the final result? I think not!

I agree with your point of view, and like I said, I salute all teachers as they do what they do out of a sense of duty to improve the greater good.

In your good analogy, which had no flaws from my POV ;), if the group of terrorists stayed terrorists was it a failure of the student or teacher? Probably both, maybe more environmental, who knows but an interesting question to ask…

@Torbjørn –

I think you partially missed the main points:
1. The student was only willing to learn because he wanted the notoriety of the master, not the wisdom.
2. The master did not want to teach (perhaps just that student).
3. Unless the student was dense, he realized the acquisition of knowledge and wisdom is primarily a self-improvement activity that is only for self-reward.

So let’s twist this into another example, what if I wanted to become rich and followed Warren Buffet around all day? Would he see my interest in money as wanting to learn the stock market or just a want of money?

Sometimes people are not willing to spoon feed knowledge to others, especially when their intentions and effort are more inline with an end destination and not the journey that teaches us wisdom.

The student was really willing to learn – he thought about it all day – he just didn’t know how to go about learning himself. But he knew to ask for help, which is generally a good thing.

What happened to the young man after the drowning incident you think? What is more likely: He suddenly knew how to acquire knowledge for himself by the fear the philosopher put in him? Or did he never dear ask another question again?

I agree we don’t have an inherent duty to teach, but this post still made no sense to me.

Since this whole thing is being framed as an analogy (an approach to exploration of ideas that I wholeheartedly try to avoid for all its inherent flaws), here’s another one:

Bringing balance to perspectives by becoming a teacher in a poor nation where radical fundamentalist schools crank out terrorists can prevent human suffering.

The vast majority of masters who choose a monastic life don’t shut themselves off in a mountain top cliche. These isolated few are a rarity, not a norm. Most simple monks are teachers.

That said, as leader of smart people, you need create a culture that produces and rewards innovation, success, and respect. I have post on this if anyone is interested.

I think this is why we have a lot of people who would rather teach college than high school, one student chooses (kind of) to go, the other is required by law.