ignorance

the laws of ignorance
from Philip Armour's "Of Jet Planes and Zeppelins" Philip goes onto explain that you can only have a process for something you already know how to do.
 * 0th Order Ignorance: Lack of Ignorance
 * I (probably) know something
 * 1th Order Ignorance: Lack of Knowledge
 * I do not know something
 * 2nd Order Ignorance: Lack of Awareness
 * I do not know that I do not know something
 * 3rd Order Ignorance: Lack of Process
 * I do not know a (suitably effective) way to find out that I don't know something
 * 4th Order Ignorance: Meta-Ignorance
 * I do not know about the Five Orders of Ignorance

And the corollary: you can't have a process for something you've never done.

He applies this to software production, in support of the [|Agile or Extreme programming] method.

I think it needs to be applied to other things, like education, too

another take on the laws of ignorance
- from [|The Domains of Ignorance], thanks to [|arti] for pointer
 * Known unknowns**: All the things you know you don't know
 * Unknown unknowns**: All the things you don't know you don't know
 * Errors**: All the things you think you know but don't
 * Unknown knowns**: All the things you don't know you know
 * Taboos**: Dangerous, polluting or forbidden knowledge
 * Denials**: All the things too painful to know, so you don't

Here's an account of applying these laws to a real life programming problem: [|we-dont-know-what-we-dont-know]

artichoke has a blog post about how questions are over-rated, [|Books for teachers you will never see]