I started my kids on turtle graphics. There's a good implementation that comes with python that's very easy to get up-and-running, to the point where it quite reminds me of BASIC on the kinds of microcomputers I got started on as a kid.
Ask HN: How are parents who program teaching their kids today?
21–30 of 104 posts
Re: Ask HN: How are parents who program teaching their kids today?
#22I have run a codeclub for 10 years. Here’s some quick thoughts: - Make them curious, if they are curious they will teach themselves. Example: don’t tell them what a for loop is, make a project where they really need it, but let them first to write it very verbosely without loops, then they will almost invent it themselves and be relived when you teach them (same style can be applied to most things) - make projects th…
These are awesome pointers. I especially agree with your first point about writing verbosely - I would do this all the time when I was teaching kids. I would copy and paste things and write all kinds of hairy logic, so they can see how useful it is to use different syntax and apply some refactoring.
Re: Ask HN: How are parents who program teaching their kids today?
#23programming can be picked up any time, rather invest time into building curiosity and basic fundamental sciences: math, physics, and micro/biology. these three fields underpin all advanced sciences
Fantasic advice. Programming is something you can teach yourself. Spend the "teacher time" learning science.
Re: Ask HN: How are parents who program teaching their kids today?
#24> Knowing fundamentals is always useful, but learning to collaborate with an AI is probably the more important long-term skill.
How difficult a skill is "collaborate with an AI" that it can't be picked up quickly at any time (and will be changing rapidly)?
And how permanently stunted is a person who always "collaborated" and never had to think.
> I’ve been focusing on fundamentals like logic, structure, and problem-solving.
These are good. And exploration, and having fun.
> CS fundamentals
You can gently drop CS-ish ideas, or more sophisticated programming ideas, as the kid is ready. For example, they're blocked on something they're building, and can't go any further, because they're trying to do everything as code with not enough data. So you show them what could be data, and what language feature enables that, and suddenly their code looks a little more sophisticated, and a lot less repetitive.
If they keep going, eventually they will want to frontload learn all the CS things. Not for Leetcode interviews, nor for whatever job-gatekeeping atrocity is made up next for people who also have to interview-prep to fake "passion".
Re: Ask HN: How are parents who program teaching their kids today?
#25Not all but many kids are destined to hate what you’re good at.
Re: Ask HN: How are parents who program teaching their kids today?
#26Minecraft. After a while they'll want to write their own plugins. They will feel instant power when they learn the can run their own server with their own plugins and can change the actual game! (Worked for my nephew anyway).
Minecraft is great because even vanilla has “programming like” capabilities with red stone.
And then modded Minecraft can take you all the way, as far as you want to go.
Of course, I recommend starting with GregTech New Horizons - if they can survive that they’ll be able to handle anything!
Re: Ask HN: How are parents who program teaching their kids today?
#27My teenagers have zero interest in programming. They like just about everything else other than programming. They both have the ability, but it’s not what they want to spend their time doing.
The surest way I’ve seen is to show something practical that can be done - which can be relatively easy with things that interact with the real world - like programming Home Assistant to do things, especially things to annoy siblings and parents, like lights that turn themselves back off.
Re: Ask HN: How are parents who program teaching their kids today?
#28Father of three here (ages 11-15)
I teach them the following:
1. Goal determination - what do you want to do?
2. Context mapping - What is the environment and action space we’re operating in?
3. Problem decomposition - Given The previous how can I chunk the overall space of action into measurable and manageable parts to solve
4. Tool selection - what effector systems can I access and can they solve the subproblems?
5. Structured solution exploration - Now that I know my goal, context, problem heirarchy and tools, how do I create experimental system to progressively solve each subproblem and the intersection between them
Then it’s just running that until you have a solution
This transcends “coding” to more important thing which is holistic alignment of goal (direction) and action capabilities (magnitude) that results in a measured action vector which is discrete and bounded.
Re: Ask HN: How are parents who program teaching their kids today?
#29I taught kids how to code for several years, both in person and through a website that taught Python to ~500k kids. My eternal advice with teaching CS is to delay abstractions as long as possible . Teach them how to draw a circle on a canvas, then get them to move the circle to different parts of the canvas, then get them to draw multiple overlapping circles/rectangles/etc. Once you've got that down, make a bouncing…
My experience also shown that Python, being considered "simple", is actually harder for students to learn. Things I took as obvious are not for first time coders:
Ok, so spaces and indentation matter. How many spaces exactly there should be around `=`?
`a[1]` -- does it fetch something or does it modify something?
`for k, v in a.items():` or `for i in range(10):` -- waaa? How many spaces there should be?
What do you mean my Python script doesn't run, you see I clicked it and it runs. What do you mean "interpreter"?
And the main issue -- types. I'm 100% convinced now that the first language must be strictly-typed, like Java, and don't use `var`, always use explicit types. Otherwise students don't think in terms of types, but "what I put there" like it can hold anything.
Re: Ask HN: How are parents who program teaching their kids today?
#308 year old badly wants to be an engineer like his dad. :’) Public school got him into Scratch so he was animating things. The high school robotics team I mentor has Lego robotics kits for their community outreach program. Those kits use Scratch. So I got him a used kit and he spends an absolutely ridiculous amount of time making robots that do stuff.
This started at a very young age: we gave him access to a windows PC, not a tablet. So by 3 he could log in and get to YouTube kids. This meant that keyboard and mouse and web browser were very comfortable concepts.
We also gave him and his younger brother countless building toys. Meccano. Lego Technic.
A few lessons I’d love to empart:
- you can’t make your kid into this. His younger brother has no interest and is far more about sports. So we nurture that with him instead.
- open ended learning. I’m not sitting down and teaching him. All I do is make sure he has access to the tools, and I unstick him when he’s stuck.
- I connect concepts when I see them. “That’s called a loop. It’s just like that thing you did in Minecraft to make your machine work over and over again.”
- the learning must all be a side effect of having fun. Don’t try to teach programming. Do fun things and fill in the programming toolbox, tool by tool, as they’re needed.
- connect programming to what your kid is passionate about. Programming is a means to an end, not the end itself. My kid loves trains and has a Lego train set. I suggested he use his technic to automate the track switch. I then let him work at it for hours and hours over weeks, giving him breadcrumbs of what to consider next.