Rubbing Sticks and the Magpie’s Nest (1)

I was actively involved with the Cub Scouts as a child. On one of our camping expeditions, a troop leader taught us how to start a fire by rubbing sticks together. (To be honest, he tried to teach us how to start a fire with sticks, but in the end nobody — not even our group leader — was able to achieve ignition.)

We began by searching the woods for two dry sticks that were “thicker than our thumbs and thinner than our wrists.” After locating the ideal timber, we sat in a circle and listened to the leader explain the process of starting a fire. Well, some of the kids listened. Eager to see flames, I was too impatient to hear the instructions and began furiously rubbing my sticks together. My troop leader, dismayed that I wasn’t paying attention, asked me to stop. He set down his sticks and asked all of the kids to do the same. Seizing the opportunity, our leader took a moment and shared the story of the Magpie’s Nest.

The Magpie’s Nest is a story from the late 1800’s, published by Joseph Jacobs in English Fairy Tales. More parable than fairy tale, the Magpie’s Nest tells the story of how different birds learned to build their nests. Here’s an abbreviated version of the tale:

All the birds of the air came to the magpie and asked her to teach them how to build nests. For the magpie is the cleverest bird of all at building nests. So she put all the birds round her and began to show them how to do it. First of all she took some mud and made a sort of round cake with it.

“Oh, that’s how it’s done,” said the thrush; and away it flew, and so that’s how thrushes build their nests.

Then the magpie took some twigs and arranged them round in the mud.

“Now I know all about it,” says the blackbird, and off he flew; and that’s how the blackbirds make their nests to this very day.

Then the magpie put another layer of mud over the twigs.

“Oh that’s quite obvious,” said the wise owl, and away it flew; and owls have never made better nests since.

After this the magpie took some twigs and twined them round the outside.

“The very thing!” said the sparrow, and off he went; so sparrows make rather slovenly nests to this day.

Well, then Madge Magpie took some feathers and stuff and lined the nest very comfortably with it.

“That suits me,” cried the starling, and off it flew; and very comfortable nests have starlings.

So it went on, every bird taking away some knowledge of how to build nests, but, none of them waiting to the end.

My troop leader was making the point that you should always be patient when learning something new. If you run off and start applying new knowledge too early, it can come back to bite you. Sometimes you’ll even be downright dangerous putting partial knowledge to use. (Imagine trying to fly an airplane after reading a manual for an hour.)

I often think of the Magpie’s Nest when I deliver corporate training seminars. Some of the courses that I teach are prerequisites for other classes, and I worry that my students will be overconfident with the partial knowledge that I’m able to share in just a few days.

For example, in Introduction to Java I teach students how to connect to a database with JDBC. Unfortunately, I can only afford to spend four hours on this topic in a typical five-day course. This is plenty of time to explain the basics, but not nearly enough time to cover good style and best practices. I do my best to explain that in the “real world” developers should consider using a database pooling manager, a JNDI registry, and even an Object Relational Mapping framework such as Hibernate. These are all topics that I teach in more advanced courses.

I do my best to emphasize that what I’m teaching is a necessary prerequisite but a horrible real-world practice. Despite my emphasis, I still worry that students will act as I once did, and start rubbing their sticks together too soon.

It’s a difficult problem to solve. On one hand, I believe that a solid foundation needs to be laid before students can learn best practices. On the other hand, I fear that my students will never get around to learning more robust techniques. Part of my fear is fueled by ego. I worry that a person who knows better might see the handiwork of one of my students and ask who taught them how to build such shoddy software. (I also worry that their software will be slow, inefficient and insecure, but I’d be lying if said egotism didn’t play a large role.)

I’ve learned that the best way to solve this problem is to set realistic expectations. When I begin to deliver a new topic that I know I won’t have time to cover deeply, I simply explain the situation. I tell my students that the topic they are about to learn is complex, and that we won’t have time to discuss all of its nuances.

After covering the topic as well as time allows, I ask my students to come up with ideas for how they could improve upon what they learned. Rather than explicitly pointing out the shortcomings of what I just showed them, I believe it’s important for my students to realize them on their own. I want them to understand that it’s important to learn more about the topic before they go to work. If they arrive at this conclusion on their own, then they will be more likely to take the initiative to learn more.

This advice applies to teachers and students alike. Trainers should set realistic expectations, and put their students down the path toward learning more. Students should be patient as they learn, and resist the urge to apply their knowledge too soon. Impatience is often a sign of passion, and passion is great for learning. However, it’s important that passion be channeled and patience be exercised when learning something new. Remember the tale of the Magpie’s Nest, and don’t rub your sticks too soon.