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> I think one mistake we all make is imagine a world in which everybody can and enjoys writing code as a result of that. That makes no sense at all. A lot of pe

> I think one mistake we all make is imagine a world in which everybody can and enjoys writing code as a result of that. That makes no sense at all. A lot of people would probably hate it, and even more obvious, most people would just forget. I thought the idea of teaching kids to code is to show them that it can be immensely rewarding and fun, thus encouraging those that "click" with it to explore it further on their own. As a guy who gets bored often, I consider myself to be extremely lucky to have discovered a "passion" for computer-y things early on. I'm pretty sure I'd have been bored out of my mind if I had pursued any other discipline. Coding/Computing/... is the best game there is: we play "Simon^H^H^H^H^H Coder Says" with machines all day long. We'll never completely win it, but the mini-bosses along the way make it totally worth it. I feel like a lot of my classmates would probably get it as well if they were guided into it, but instead "computing class" was basically an MS Word tutorial. Something like Logo (or Sketch, nowadays) would have been much more effective and fun. If I had to teach high schoolers to code, I'd absolutely approach and present it as a game ("Imagine if you were the benevolent dictator of the universe..."). Because it is. It'll stick with some, it won't with others, and as always - the delivery method will affect the outcome more than the actual message (ever had a $SUBJECT_YOU_DISLIKED teacher that was so awesome that he actually made you perform well in $SUBJECT that year?) EDIT: forgot this: > BTW: We need higher-level languages on top of maths (that are not general purpose programming languages) so that people can talk about complex processes and what not. If it isn't evaluated/compiled, then we'll classify it under the "Maths" nebula anyway. See mathematical logic/boolean algebra, etc.

teamhappy 12y ago
I agree with every single paragraph. Showing kids that coding is very rewarding and fun is great, as long as we don't waste the other kids time for no real reason (that's a means-end question and we're clearly biased, which is why I think this is so important to consider). 2D games are a great way to learn about trigonometry and these kind of things, no question about it. It has to be a interpreted/compiled language, of course, otherwise it wouldn't be useful at all. But that doesn't mean it needs to be Python. I wonder what a modern-day Scheme would look like. Or maybe visual (think node-based) programming would be more suitable.
- yourad_io 12y ago
  > Showing kids that coding is very rewarding and fun is great, as long as we don't waste the other kids time for no real reason (that's a means-end question and we're clearly biased, which is why I think this is so important to consider). But a major percentage of any educational process will waste time for every student. Not the same parts for each student, but invariably there will be some subjects that offer you nothing, while they will trigger something in other kids, e.g. Art. Coding class would hardly be the first to do this, nor do I see any way around it in general.

teamhappy 12y ago

I agree with every single paragraph. Showing kids that coding is very rewarding and fun is great, as long as we don't waste the other kids time for no real reason (that's a means-end question and we're clearly biased, which is why I think this is so important to consider). 2D games are a great way to learn about trigonometry and these kind of things, no question about it. It has to be a interpreted/compiled language, of course, otherwise it wouldn't be useful at all. But that doesn't mean it needs to be Python. I wonder what a modern-day Scheme would look like. Or maybe visual (think node-based) programming would be more suitable.

yourad_io 12y ago
> Showing kids that coding is very rewarding and fun is great, as long as we don't waste the other kids time for no real reason (that's a means-end question and we're clearly biased, which is why I think this is so important to consider). But a major percentage of any educational process will waste time for every student. Not the same parts for each student, but invariably there will be some subjects that offer you nothing, while they will trigger something in other kids, e.g. Art. Coding class would hardly be the first to do this, nor do I see any way around it in general.