No, no more than you need to understand group theory before you learn to add and subtract or ring theory before you learn to multiply. Better to teach how to u

No, no more than you need to understand group theory before you learn to add and subtract or ring theory before you learn to multiply. Better to teach how to use specific monads without using the dread m-word, and then say "You know, these all have something in common" and then talk about monads, or these days work your way up from Monoid to Functor to Applicative to Monad.