Apprenticeship Patterns as a Beginner Apprentice

One of the oldest professional relationships throughout human history is that between the master and the apprentice. As an apprentice, one of the greatest struggles is overcoming the problem of ‘you don’t know what you don’t know.’ And the earliest variant of this problem is in understanding how best to be an apprentice. The book Apprenticeship Patterns aims to assist apprentices in forming fundamental behaviors and processes to keep an excellent growth-oriented mindset throughout their entire professional lives. As a brand-new apprentice myself, these are the things that stood out to me most and how I intend to apply them as I continue to learn my craft.

What is an apprentice without a master?

As the term ‘growth-oriented mindset’ implies, one of the fundamental aspects of being a good apprentice is always being open to learning; well, not just open to it, but diligently seeking out ways to improve. This statement introduces a delicate principle that greatly affects long-term success. As the book points out, it may be difficult and even rare to find people who will deliver honest and helpful criticism of your work. Therefore, simply being open to accepting criticism is rarely enough to actually grow. You have to seek it out. Setting up feedback loops with both peers and mentors is necessary for maintaining consistent growth, and this cannot be achieved simply by being open to criticism.

Finding mentors to help provide this feedback and guidance can be an intimidating task. It is, however, vital to any apprentice’s success. For all the introverts out there like myself, it is encouraging to know that all of your potential mentors have been in the same place that you are and know how intimidating it is to expose your ignorance and ask for consistent guidance. So don’t be afraid to ask. You will be surprised how many people have been in your shoes and are happy to provide the knowledge and wisdom that helped them grow out of their positions into something new. Any growth will require breaking out of your comfort zone, and this is an excellent opportunity to do just that.

Hunger for learning

It is said that there was never a student who knew everything. If that were true, they would be no student at all. And anyone who truly desires to learn and to understand must first empty themselves of all their preconceived notions of knowledge and present themselves as a dried sponge eager to absorb the knowledge that may be given to them. You cannot truly grow if you cannot let go of what you believe you already know.

In the same sense, growth cannot be obtained by remaining in the same comfortable place forever. You have to become comfortable with the idea of being uncomfortable. Stepping out into new territory can be thoroughly uncomfortable, but it is necessary for growth. Furthermore, interest in the craft wanes when the craft slumps into the recurring mundane. Pushing boundaries, while uncomfortable, captivates your interest and allows you to explore your way into new possibilities.

Gaining/Contributing Value

Of course, just because you find something interesting doesn’t mean it will be valuable to your work. This is where the idea of personal projects and breakable toys come into play. These allow you to push boundaries and take on the risk of failure without impacting the real-life projects that you undertake. Breakable toys are also perhaps the best way to safely experiment, fail, then succeed in building new skills you couldn’t in your workplace. They allow you to learn with the potential for failure, but without the risk of failing at the work you are expected to do. This is an incredibly powerful concept for anyone who wishes to learn because failure is an integral part of the learning process, and being able to safely fail is invaluable.

As a brand-new apprentice, I find myself contributing very little to my projects, and oftentimes, work will not be given to me for days on end. This can be very discouraging, and it implies the risk that I may be removed from a team for lack of contributing to it. This is where the virtues of patience and humility greatly come into play: patience, to keep you focused on learning even when you are not directly contributing to a project, and humility, to seek out the menial and ‘dumb’ tasks so that you can take them off the plate of the more experienced developers, and therefore contribute to the project. In this way, you will find value in the experience you receive, and your team will find value in the time you save by carrying out these simpler tasks for them. The book refers to this as ‘Sweeping the Floor.’

If no one sweeps the floor, then the glamorous work can’t be done because the team is hip-deep in dirt. - Apprenticeship Patterns

A true apprentice will seek out the situations and teams in which they know the least because it is in these that they can grow the most. There is a very delicate balance here. You want to be ignorant enough to maximize your own growth, but not so ignorant that you fail to provide anything to your team in return. This is why you need mentors and accurate self-reflection: to gauge where you are in terms of value to a team and where you are in terms of what can be learned. If left on either extreme, you will risk having either nothing to gain or nothing to provide.

Gathering Resources and Tools

In this day and age, there are limitless resources available to you for the purpose of learning and growing. And these resources are always being added to. Therefore, knowing which resources are the best for growth is incredibly important. Who better to seek for guidance on good resource selections than those who have gone before you? This is yet another critical reason that having mentors and peers aids your growth. When you are given or find a resource, add it to a personal list that you intend to go through and keep that list relevant. It is both a support for your present and a stimulant for your future.

A common temptation for people with experience, or even just enough experience to get by, is to hold firmly to the tools they know and resist the need to learn new ones. This is fatal for growth and future success, as it limits you to using tools that will inevitably become nuisances in light of newer ones. Holding onto the comfort gained from past experience limits your ability to thrive in the future.

Takeaways

All in all, you cannot truly succeed as an apprentice without guidance. Being intentional in seeking out masters to train you and mentors to guide you is essential for growth and cannot be ignored. Your passion to learn will be the innermost fire that fuels your ability to persevere through the difficulties of growth. And freeing yourself from the need to be comfortable allows you to embrace true craftsmanship in everything that you do. Lastly, accepting that you will always be an apprentice to the craft is the only way for you to become a craftsman. Without understanding that you always have room to grow, you will never truly grow.