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I used to be more involved in the educational space–I used to teach college-level classes and also participate/organize/mentor coding spaces for young adults–an

I used to be more involved in the educational space–I used to teach college-level classes and also participate/organize/mentor coding spaces for young adults–and I don't think there is anything inherently wrong with the way that we teach programming. I have come to believe, after years of teaching, that you cannot _teach_ curiosity, but you can help create environments that foster a students desire to learn and explore. As such, the point of education is to expose and empower children (people, really) to have the tools they need to explore and discover the things that they _want_ to understand and master. You really can't _make_ someone enjoy "x", where "x" is the passion of the teacher. Programming, to me, is like writing, painting, or mathematics. In so much that it is a multi-faceted discipline. Coding is to writing as typing is to penmanship. There are _many_ reasons to write; from jotting down a grocery list to writing an epic novel, just as there are many reasons to code; from bulk automation/text transformation to diving into deep artificial intelligence. Just as there are many reasons to paint, and many reasons to do math. The "how" is dependent on the "why". Most people don't learn to mix oil paint simply for the joys of mixing oil paints, most people don't learn penmanship simply because they long to see a well formed letterform. Few people learn the how to take the functional derivative, simply because. It's a means to an end; they learn to do it because they need to express something _else_. I don't expect every child in my english classes to go on to write a great non-fiction masterpiece or an epic novel. In fact, most of them wont, but I _do_ think its important that they are exposed to the fundamental skills involved; penmanship, vocabulary, basic composition, in the event they _do_ want to write, or code, or compute, or paint, or whatever... I think "school" is exposure to the mechanics, and individuals who desire more will seek out the rest.

deleted 11y ago
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hellcow 11y ago
As a counter-point: my favorite classes were always the ones in which the teacher instilled their love of the subject into their teaching. Show me what can be accomplished--show me the best of what can be done--and let my imagination run with that. The mechanics are generally simple and can be learned online or through routine practice. It's the passion, the love, of the subject that teachers can uniquely give their students, whether that's history or painting or programming. Show us the joy behind it, and we'll seek out the rest. I know that mechanics and passion aren't mutually exclusive, but the question ultimately comes down to what teachers should prioritize. What's their goal? Is it to teach how to add, multiply, and divide, or is it really to inspire a lifelong love of mathematics in their students' lives?
- 32bitkid 11y ago
  And I agree with most what you are saying; I think the worst teachers are, at best, not passionate about what they are teaching all the way to, at worst, have no understanding of what they are teaching and are just "teaching" from a book. Neither one of those really conducive for for what I would consider a prerequisite for real learning: An environment of exploration and curiosity. But, I do disagree about teachers "giving passion"; I don't think thats possible. I think its possible for a good teacher, at the right time, to ignite a students curiosity in a subject. But that spark _has_ to come from the student, not the teacher. I don't care how passionate you are as a teacher, if the student doesn't give a shit, it's not happening. It's the teacher's job to fan it into flames of mastery, not create the initial sparks of interest. Although, it seems that most of the time these days, it's the teachers job to quell the sparks of interest from students and get them "back on topic". But even still, as a teacher, I think you have to accept that making that impact is not going to happen to 100% of the students in the class, probably not even 25%. And it's questionable if the teacher really had all that much to do with it; would the student have sought out information on their own outside of the context of the classroom? Hopefully... Would they have found their own set of teachers, mentors, resources to express the thing burning a hole in their head? Again, hopefully. Would it have taken them longer to do those things? Sure. I think, as a teacher, the hardest thing to do is not to take too much credit for the accomplishments of your students. You didn't do much, other than help orient them in the right direction, they did the hard part.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

hellcow 11y ago

As a counter-point: my favorite classes were always the ones in which the teacher instilled their love of the subject into their teaching. Show me what can be accomplished--show me the best of what can be done--and let my imagination run with that. The mechanics are generally simple and can be learned online or through routine practice. It's the passion, the love, of the subject that teachers can uniquely give their students, whether that's history or painting or programming. Show us the joy behind it, and we'll seek out the rest. I know that mechanics and passion aren't mutually exclusive, but the question ultimately comes down to what teachers should prioritize. What's their goal? Is it to teach how to add, multiply, and divide, or is it really to inspire a lifelong love of mathematics in their students' lives?

32bitkid 11y ago
And I agree with most what you are saying; I think the worst teachers are, at best, not passionate about what they are teaching all the way to, at worst, have no understanding of what they are teaching and are just "teaching" from a book. Neither one of those really conducive for for what I would consider a prerequisite for real learning: An environment of exploration and curiosity. But, I do disagree about teachers "giving passion"; I don't think thats possible. I think its possible for a good teacher, at the right time, to ignite a students curiosity in a subject. But that spark _has_ to come from the student, not the teacher. I don't care how passionate you are as a teacher, if the student doesn't give a shit, it's not happening. It's the teacher's job to fan it into flames of mastery, not create the initial sparks of interest. Although, it seems that most of the time these days, it's the teachers job to quell the sparks of interest from students and get them "back on topic". But even still, as a teacher, I think you have to accept that making that impact is not going to happen to 100% of the students in the class, probably not even 25%. And it's questionable if the teacher really had all that much to do with it; would the student have sought out information on their own outside of the context of the classroom? Hopefully... Would they have found their own set of teachers, mentors, resources to express the thing burning a hole in their head? Again, hopefully. Would it have taken them longer to do those things? Sure. I think, as a teacher, the hardest thing to do is not to take too much credit for the accomplishments of your students. You didn't do much, other than help orient them in the right direction, they did the hard part.