This weekend I was a teacher's assistant at Railsbridge Boston. Railsbridge is an organization focused on getting more women involved in the software and web development scene. It was a pretty awesome experience to be able to teach beginner programmers about ruby.
The most interesting thing I learned is that teaching is both an art and a science ( quoted from my friend and mentor Johnny Boursiquot). It's one thing to know a subject on a deep level, it's another thing entirely to teach someone what you know in a timely manner. It was interesting to walk up to someone, hear them explain a particular problem in their own words, then translate what they said into terms I could understand to solve a problem. What I just said sounds like a really basic concept, but when people are counting on you to get them through a hurdle quickly, it really does add a lot of pressure to think on your toes.
Several of the questions I was not able to answer immediately, but it was valuable for me as well as the person I was helping to see how a real developer tackles problems. As programmers, we don't know all the answers, but we are extremely resourceful and can generally find an answer pretty quickly. My biggest impact this weekend was not teaching about arrays and hashes, but teaching people how to effectively use google and ruby documentation to find the answers they were looking for.
I am back to coding for now, I have some interesting projects I want to pump out while the night is still young. Thank you RailsBridge Boston for the opportunity to teach at your event tonight, it was an honor and a pleasure.
If anyone would like to read more about Railsbridge, Please check their website out @ Rails Bridge Boston
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