What Do You Do?

As someone who self-identifies as a software developer, when someone asks me what I do, there is a tempting and obvious answer.  I write code.  I gather requirements from business users, I consider a variety of factors going into the development such as data sources, type and style of User Interface, need for future maintenance, available resources, etc etc etc.  When all the information has been gathered and all the angles considered, I take all of that and teach a computer to do what people want it to do.  I write code.

None of that is wrong and that description is technically correct, but that is not what I do.  In fact, it is the technical correctness of the description that causes it to fall so short of describing what I actually do.

Tonight, I went to see a lecture given by Sir Ken Robinson, a renowned thinker on the topic of education and creativity.  I could fill a whole blog post with his amazing and inspirational thoughts on the subject, but I do have a specific point here.  During his talk, Sir Ken touched on what he saw as one of many wrong-headed approaches to education.  Bad teachers, he said, teach English, or Math, or Music, or Physics; Good teachers teach students.  It’s a simple concept, but it really struck home for me.  Sir Ken’s point was that our current educational system is focused on teaching to tests, or subjects, or an idea of “what kids need to know to be successful.”  Instead he (and I) think that the system should focus on the student; what are they interested in, what are their passions, what will make them want to learn?

This is an amazing idea, but I saw another lesson to be learned from the example.  In this little parable, the educator has lost sight of the true and laudable goal of educating a child and preparing them for the world.  They have become lost in a specific implementation of this goal that has pervaded western educational models for nearly a century.  The implementation (teaching specific subjects to all students) has now become the end in itself, rather than the means to the end of educating students.  As any software developer knows, this is a dangerous position to be in.  Your business needs become lost in the needs of the software, productivity and understanding drop, and you now have a tool that not only does not do its intended job, but may actually work against your purpose.

All of this comes back around to my original point.  When someone asks me what I do, I used to tell them that I write code; now I know better.  What I do is help people.  I help my business staff do their jobs smarter, more efficiently, and more happily.  I help our users to navigate the complex systems of the university with streamlined and intuitive web applications.  I help the university become a better place for scholars, and the staff who support them.  I do write code.  But that is not what I do; that is how I do it.

So I’ll ask again: what do you do?

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