Story time. It's related, I promise.
At the end of the last century, I taught basic IT skills at an university: things like how to use email, email attachments, word processing in structured writing (essays, articles, thesis, as you normally have to do at an university), and so on. (Yes, I was a very young, barely adult whippersnapper back then.)
I did not teach Microsoft Word. I taught how word processing programs work and approach the task of structured writing, with Microsoft Word as the example at hand.
Things like why one needs to use styles instead of just picking the font and size (answer: because that way you mark the structure of your writing, and get things like indexes and lists of figures automatically), how to control section numbering and numbering formats, page numbering, and so on.
I created the material online, and the only compulsory part was a basic test (that anyone with actual word processing skills could do in fifteen minutes or less) that was only graded as pass/fail, passing required before participating in courses that required those skills. (Another was image processing, with Adobe Photoshop as the example.)
The students split into three completely distinct groups:
- Hey, I didn't know I could be this efficient with a word processing program! Neat, this saves me a LOT of time.
- I've used Word for years, and this test is a pain in the butt. An hour is not enough time to number the 45 pages (of supplied Lorem Ipsum -like filler text)! This is unfair! I'm going to complain to the head of the department so I can get a pass anyway.
- I'm NOT interested in knowing how these programs work. Can't you just show me which buttons to press so I can memorize them, and be done with this stupid computer stuff?
I loved dealing with the first group. My approach was to always show how to do things the easy way, without compromising say visual layout. (Things like showing that if you have a specific layout you use very often –– like I do with article-like notes I write for myself for long-term use ––, you can do a
template with those pre-set.)
Showing the third group that the work in the "exam" was exactly like the stuff they are supposed to work on later on in their studies, was usually enough. That the course/exam was necessary, for them to be able to do the work in reasonable time, and to be able to communicate effectively with each other (future colleagues) and the lecturers and professors. Some were just overwhelmed with the stuff they needed to learn, and had a culture shock with how different university was to high school.
The second group was the hardest to deal with. (It was only later that I realized that power users who only have used a single operating system, have the most difficulties in transferring their skill-set to another operating system, for exactly the same reason. Simply put, it is easier to teach a typical computer illiterate to become a Linux/Unix sysadmin, than it is to teach a typical Windows-only power user or sysadmin for the same position, because the latter has to
un-learn first.)
They had already learned and adopted an approach to using programs, especially word processing programs. So, when that turned out to be completely bass-ackwards and inefficient, not only does it mean they had to
un-learn, they also had to admit that they didn't know what they thought they knew. That's a blow to anyones ego; I know from personal experience. Repeated personal experience.
Note, however, that none of this involved "religious" or "axiomatic" opinions. It was just an end result of using a tool (word processing) like another tool (typewriters, except with More Fonts) they knew before, without spending the time or effort to understand how that tool can be used in the easiest and most efficient manner.
Compare to the space/tab discussion above: the points of when to use spaces and when to use tabs that describe an actual use case, are very useful. There is nothing religious or axiomatic in that, just discussing scenarios where using a tool in a specific way is useful. On the other hand, those who simply state what they prefer, only provide a single data point, a single factoid; and nothing others can evaluate or consider.
Thus, we come to my perennial complaint: Instead of stating your opinion only,
please describe the reasoning or experience you base your opinion on.
If you cannot describe such basis, do consider whether your opinion has any worth, even to yourself; or perhaps it is something you ought to reconsider.
It is only that reasoning or experience that is useful to others, because we're not religious automata that adopt new opinions just because they were presented to us.
Well, I definitely hope we aren't, that is.
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