5 ms·

My wife has been teaching coding to kids for a few years now. Her prediction, or worry, is that it will end up looking a lot like math education: A few students

My wife has been teaching coding to kids for a few years now. Her prediction, or worry, is that it will end up looking a lot like math education: A few students excel while the majority of the class see it as an endless source of frustration and quickly learn to hate it. And then discussions like these are almost exclusively held by the minority who excelled.

znpy 6y ago
In a way, it's already like that.
- asdff 6y ago
  Especially considering how much math is required for a computer science education. It scared me off, and I became exposed to programming through another field which was far more pleasant due to avoiding all that horribly difficult math.
jshier 6y ago
Aren't all subjects at school like that? Isn't this expected with general education before allowing students to specialize? I wouldn't think it's possible to teach every subject in a way that every student enjoys it.
- InitialLastName 6y ago
  They might not enjoy it, but if you miss (or fake understanding) a year of high school social studies or language arts, you can still function in the class the next year (maybe with a little bit less practice). The issue I see people run into in math classes specifically is that the curriculum builds on the past heavily enough that if you miss a key insight, you might never catch up (unless someone can take the time to help you restore that ability).
  - ghaff 6y ago
    At some point, you learn bad habits, reading comprehension, and writing quality are subpar. But even the different sciences are mostly independent. With math--which is a foundation for physics too of course, while there are a few areas like geometric proofs that I didn't get along with and mostly didn't come back to, math does tend to build on itself to a large degree. And if you get too far behind, it gets increasingly hard to keep progressing.
folkhack 6y ago
I've mentored a great deal at the HS/college level and I can share the same sentiments. I hate to sound so crass but you're either cut out for it or you're not... People get shoved into STEM/tech/whatever because it has good career prospects without ever considering the nuance of what makes children/people successful in this. Frankly, most people won't even wrap their head around simple conditional logic/algebra. I say "won't" because in my experience they're fully capable, they just put in minimal effort to get past the exercises. I end up having to pace my entire instruction to those kids when I find them in my groups. It's worth noting that I'm in the US where this is sorta an unspoken social contract for getting through school: keep your head down and show minimal effort + don't make waves and you'll be passed right along without a problem (usually with good grades). Thankfully, I'm doing after-school program stuff and the kids want to be there; but, you'd be surprised at how many kids are there because their parents are forcibly bolstering college apps with extra-curriculars (gross). Sorry to wander a bit there... My main point is that regardless of whatever ideals we would like to hold not everyone is cut out for highly technical work, especially coding. Hopefully I don't come off as too much of a curmudgeon!
- carabiner 6y ago
  > Frankly, most people won't even wrap their head around simple conditional logic/algebra. What do you mean by this? I've met people who struggled with for-loops, but most people have been able to get if-then statements.
  - folkhack 6y ago
    For sure. I'll just dig on the specific (and very anecdotal) experience: So many of those kids didn't want to be there, and couldn't be bothered to just wrap their heads around if-then logic, or storing a value to a variable... simple, simple stuff. They were capable, and we'd do true/false tables on paper etc. to talk about how their LEGO "vending machine" or whatever should work but it was pulling teeth and over 50% of the groups never finished outside of physical assembly. I got a real respect for teachers at that point and realized that so much of your work is sinking time into keeping kids who could give two-s#&ts less "on the rails" vs. actually mentoring a kid who has real interest/potential in the subject matter. I believe what I experienced is a common experience for educators =( But my whole original "won't" bit spells it out pretty clear... to rephrase: I'll venture to say almost all of those kids were capable, they just "won't" while trying to manipulate you to do all the thinking for them. "Welllll can't you just give me the next line Mr. folkhack.....? I just don't knowwww......" with puppy eyes sorta crap. Ninja edit: It's worth noting that general school population sorta stuff is where you get the above anecdote, vs. extra-curricular 90% of the kids want to be there which makes it night-and-day. I will never do a "general school population" thing ever again after learning I'm legit not cut out for it.
AQuantized 6y ago
The main attraction coding had to me as a kid was the fact that it was untainted by the association of incredible boredom a lot of related subjects like maths had, due to them being terribly presented in school. I'd rather it stay as far away from any official syllabus as possible, there's enough to focus on as regards reforming the existing broken system.
aantix 6y ago
That reminds me of my college CS education. Thank god I had done my own projects before where I could remember the excitement.. What grade does your wife teach? My oldest sons are 7 and 5. They love Roblox. I found Codakids which has tutorials created for kids, where they can create their own Roblox game or Minecraft mod. We created a simple Obby. Very easy to follow instructions, step-by-step. They were very excited. https://codakid.com/roblox-coding/ https://codakid.com/roblox-coding/ P.S. Just a happy customer - nothing more.
6gvONxR4sf7o 6y ago
That seems like most of school when I went through it. History was just memorizing dates and I hated it, but now history is fascinating. English was BS even though I’ve always been a bookworm. Rote learning is a massive issue, but it’s an orthogonal one.
carry_bit 6y ago
If that's its destiny, you could go the https://computerbasedmath.org/ https://computerbasedmath.org/ route and just merge them together.
hardwaregeek 6y ago
If anything it's remarkable how many college CS majors clearly do not like programming. At some schools they flunk out, but other schools that can't afford to fail students just end up passing them through.
- ghaff 6y ago
  It doesn't really particularly surprise me. I think you'll find a fair number of engineers generally who love the theory and really aren't especially into tinkering, labs, machine shops, etc.
  - hardwaregeek 6y ago
    Let me clarify, it's not like these students love the theory either. They don't like CS in general. It's just that they've been forced into it, whether from their parents or just societal pressure.
analog31 6y ago
I don't know if this should be a major deterrent. My gut reaction is: If you're going to find out whether you can learn coding, better to find out sooner rather than later, for free. Right now computer science is the "hot" college major, but we don't teach it at the K-12 level in any consistent fashion, resulting in a sort of digital divide. We expect kids to find out if they're really going to thrive as computer science majors by loaning them a bunch of money and putting them through CS 101. And it doesn't mean they have to become CS majors. There's been lots of discussion of the difference between programming and computer science. Learning to code early, for those with the aptitude, would benefit students in virtually any discipline. It changed my life, though I became a math and physics major.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
racl101 6y ago
That's exactly how I'm seeing it shaping out on it. As a career path only a few would care at a young age. To try to sell it as a skillset to young people as a way of simply not being a casualty of automation is a tough sell especially before they've had the chance to enter the workforce and bounce around from gig to gig. It's not hard to sell older people. Especially if they've lost a lot of jobs and opportunities recently. Many of them are desperate and hungry for new opportunities. But for young people, to a lot of them this is just no different than another type of Math class.
woah 6y ago
Is the fact that most kids don’t like math a reason not to teach it?

znpy 6y ago

In a way, it's already like that.

asdff 6y ago
Especially considering how much math is required for a computer science education. It scared me off, and I became exposed to programming through another field which was far more pleasant due to avoiding all that horribly difficult math.

jshier 6y ago

Aren't all subjects at school like that? Isn't this expected with general education before allowing students to specialize? I wouldn't think it's possible to teach every subject in a way that every student enjoys it.

InitialLastName 6y ago
They might not enjoy it, but if you miss (or fake understanding) a year of high school social studies or language arts, you can still function in the class the next year (maybe with a little bit less practice). The issue I see people run into in math classes specifically is that the curriculum builds on the past heavily enough that if you miss a key insight, you might never catch up (unless someone can take the time to help you restore that ability).
- ghaff 6y ago
  At some point, you learn bad habits, reading comprehension, and writing quality are subpar. But even the different sciences are mostly independent. With math--which is a foundation for physics too of course, while there are a few areas like geometric proofs that I didn't get along with and mostly didn't come back to, math does tend to build on itself to a large degree. And if you get too far behind, it gets increasingly hard to keep progressing.

folkhack 6y ago

I've mentored a great deal at the HS/college level and I can share the same sentiments. I hate to sound so crass but you're either cut out for it or you're not... People get shoved into STEM/tech/whatever because it has good career prospects without ever considering the nuance of what makes children/people successful in this. Frankly, most people won't even wrap their head around simple conditional logic/algebra. I say "won't" because in my experience they're fully capable, they just put in minimal effort to get past the exercises. I end up having to pace my entire instruction to those kids when I find them in my groups. It's worth noting that I'm in the US where this is sorta an unspoken social contract for getting through school: keep your head down and show minimal effort + don't make waves and you'll be passed right along without a problem (usually with good grades). Thankfully, I'm doing after-school program stuff and the kids want to be there; but, you'd be surprised at how many kids are there because their parents are forcibly bolstering college apps with extra-curriculars (gross). Sorry to wander a bit there... My main point is that regardless of whatever ideals we would like to hold not everyone is cut out for highly technical work, especially coding. Hopefully I don't come off as too much of a curmudgeon!

carabiner 6y ago
> Frankly, most people won't even wrap their head around simple conditional logic/algebra. What do you mean by this? I've met people who struggled with for-loops, but most people have been able to get if-then statements.
- folkhack 6y ago
  For sure. I'll just dig on the specific (and very anecdotal) experience: So many of those kids didn't want to be there, and couldn't be bothered to just wrap their heads around if-then logic, or storing a value to a variable... simple, simple stuff. They were capable, and we'd do true/false tables on paper etc. to talk about how their LEGO "vending machine" or whatever should work but it was pulling teeth and over 50% of the groups never finished outside of physical assembly. I got a real respect for teachers at that point and realized that so much of your work is sinking time into keeping kids who could give two-s#&ts less "on the rails" vs. actually mentoring a kid who has real interest/potential in the subject matter. I believe what I experienced is a common experience for educators =( But my whole original "won't" bit spells it out pretty clear... to rephrase: I'll venture to say almost all of those kids were capable, they just "won't" while trying to manipulate you to do all the thinking for them. "Welllll can't you just give me the next line Mr. folkhack.....? I just don't knowwww......" with puppy eyes sorta crap. Ninja edit: It's worth noting that general school population sorta stuff is where you get the above anecdote, vs. extra-curricular 90% of the kids want to be there which makes it night-and-day. I will never do a "general school population" thing ever again after learning I'm legit not cut out for it.

AQuantized 6y ago

The main attraction coding had to me as a kid was the fact that it was untainted by the association of incredible boredom a lot of related subjects like maths had, due to them being terribly presented in school. I'd rather it stay as far away from any official syllabus as possible, there's enough to focus on as regards reforming the existing broken system.

aantix 6y ago

That reminds me of my college CS education. Thank god I had done my own projects before where I could remember the excitement.. What grade does your wife teach? My oldest sons are 7 and 5. They love Roblox. I found Codakids which has tutorials created for kids, where they can create their own Roblox game or Minecraft mod. We created a simple Obby. Very easy to follow instructions, step-by-step. They were very excited. https://codakid.com/roblox-coding/ https://codakid.com/roblox-coding/ P.S. Just a happy customer - nothing more.

6gvONxR4sf7o 6y ago

That seems like most of school when I went through it. History was just memorizing dates and I hated it, but now history is fascinating. English was BS even though I’ve always been a bookworm. Rote learning is a massive issue, but it’s an orthogonal one.

carry_bit 6y ago

If that's its destiny, you could go the https://computerbasedmath.org/ https://computerbasedmath.org/ route and just merge them together.

hardwaregeek 6y ago

If anything it's remarkable how many college CS majors clearly do not like programming. At some schools they flunk out, but other schools that can't afford to fail students just end up passing them through.

ghaff 6y ago
It doesn't really particularly surprise me. I think you'll find a fair number of engineers generally who love the theory and really aren't especially into tinkering, labs, machine shops, etc.
- hardwaregeek 6y ago
  Let me clarify, it's not like these students love the theory either. They don't like CS in general. It's just that they've been forced into it, whether from their parents or just societal pressure.

analog31 6y ago

I don't know if this should be a major deterrent. My gut reaction is: If you're going to find out whether you can learn coding, better to find out sooner rather than later, for free. Right now computer science is the "hot" college major, but we don't teach it at the K-12 level in any consistent fashion, resulting in a sort of digital divide. We expect kids to find out if they're really going to thrive as computer science majors by loaning them a bunch of money and putting them through CS 101. And it doesn't mean they have to become CS majors. There's been lots of discussion of the difference between programming and computer science. Learning to code early, for those with the aptitude, would benefit students in virtually any discipline. It changed my life, though I became a math and physics major.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

racl101 6y ago

That's exactly how I'm seeing it shaping out on it. As a career path only a few would care at a young age. To try to sell it as a skillset to young people as a way of simply not being a casualty of automation is a tough sell especially before they've had the chance to enter the workforce and bounce around from gig to gig. It's not hard to sell older people. Especially if they've lost a lot of jobs and opportunities recently. Many of them are desperate and hungry for new opportunities. But for young people, to a lot of them this is just no different than another type of Math class.

woah 6y ago

Is the fact that most kids don’t like math a reason not to teach it?