I think it might be more useful for your students to learn about making simple GUIs with Dear Imgui or something similar, that make this type of stuff intention

I think it might be more useful for your students to learn about making simple GUIs with Dear Imgui or something similar, that make this type of stuff intentional and much more stable/foolproof. A large part of game dev is making tools appropriate for making the game and all of this falls into that.