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I’m a Developer. I Won’t Teach My Kids to Code, and Neither Should You (2018)

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Re: I’m a Developer. I Won’t Teach My Kids to Code, and Neither Should You (2018)

#11

Post by BiteCode_dev »

My brother asked me when and how I though I could teach my baby niece so that she could make "a lot of money as a developper".

My answer was "when she asks for it".

There are many things a kid should learn, and among them, a huge number are more important than programming (plus sometimes a pre-requisite for it):

- reading

- writing

- basic maths

- critical analysis

- building your own idea

- defending yourself verbally, mentally and physically

- expressing yourself

- chosing ingredients and preparing food

- proper life hygiene

- understanding the current society, the medias, the political system, etc

- learning a second language

I recall that when I was a freshman, some kids were still not be able to read out loud correctly.

Programming can come later. Way, way later.

In fact, she may even not enjoy programming at all, or even consider it.

I think the best bet is like with music. If it's something you want to share: demo a lot of it in regular life, associate it with joy, and the kid may just show an interest in it.

Then foster than.

Then setup lessons, discipline, etc.

But don't make it a requirement.

Re: I’m a Developer. I Won’t Teach My Kids to Code, and Neither Should You (2018)

#12

Post by tartoran »

onion2k wrote: post #6

The article is spot on. Teaching kids to code so they learn skills like problem solving and dealing with ambiguity is a good reason to teach them. Teaching them to code because tech jobs pay well today is a lot less likely to be useful in 20 years when they're entering a job market that's very different to what we have right now.

Then its a really good reason to teach them Racket! It comes with batteries included, has a lot of learning libraries and is extremely easy to program.

Re: I’m a Developer. I Won’t Teach My Kids to Code, and Neither Should You (2018)

#13

Post by scarface74 »

onion2k wrote: post #6

The article is spot on. Teaching kids to code so they learn skills like problem solving and dealing with ambiguity is a good reason to teach them. Teaching them to code because tech jobs pay well today is a lot less likely to be useful in 20 years when they're entering a job market that's very different to what we have right now.

I’ve been in the job market since 1996. While it didn’t pay the astronomical salaries that it does now, it consistently has paid a nice wage. What trends do you see that would lessen the need for software development in the next 20 years?

Re: I’m a Developer. I Won’t Teach My Kids to Code, and Neither Should You (2018)

#15

Post by remote_phone »

I hate when people tell other people how to raise their children. It’s the most useless advice. Let children do what they want. It doesn’t have to be so serious. If the kids enjoy it then great. They don’t have to write operating systems or SAAS at age 10. Syntax, coding style etc doesn’t matter at that age, it’s better just to learn something.

Re: I’m a Developer. I Won’t Teach My Kids to Code, and Neither Should You (2018)

#16

Post by robalni »

There are many things that can help you learn programming. Problem solving is one of them. Language/syntax is one. I don't think it's wrong to teach kids one of them, but yes, we should not forget the other ones.

I think it's usually easier to learn one thing if you already know related things. It might be easier to understand a problem if you know a programming language. It might be easier to learn more about programming if you already know the syntax of a language.

Re: I’m a Developer. I Won’t Teach My Kids to Code, and Neither Should You (2018)

#17

Post by jkhdigital »

My son is almost 6 and I can say with near certainty that he will learn to code regardless of what I have to say about it. He is absolutely mesmerized by computers and as soon as he discovers that he can tell them exactly what to do he will most likely teach himself. It’s exactly what I did—my father worked at IBM and we always had a fairly capable PC at home but he was a mechanical engineer so I was on my own for learning to code.

I really hope we don’t add coding to the laundry list of rote skills that kids are evaluated on in school. Sure, make it available for those who are interested, but let’s be honest—most kids will have little interest in coding, and forcing them to learn it anyways will not provide any lasting benefit.

Re: I’m a Developer. I Won’t Teach My Kids to Code, and Neither Should You (2018)

#18

Post by remote_phone »

chrisabrams wrote: post #2

If you don’t want to teach your kids to code, ok. I actually think the sugar cookie example is analogous to web development, especially styling/CSS. As someone who has taught children how to do html/css/ basic JS it’s amazing to see how they progress; the creativity a child can have is unpredictable but usually inspiring. Also, why is pocket acting like amp with the url? :/ :/ :/

Pocket shows up on the startup page for Firefox. They reprint old articles under their web site.

Re: I’m a Developer. I Won’t Teach My Kids to Code, and Neither Should You (2018)

#20

Post by pydry »

BiteCode_dev wrote: post #11

My brother asked me when and how I though I could teach my baby niece so that she could make "a lot of money as a developper". My answer was "when she asks for it". There are many things a kid should learn, and among them, a huge number are more important than programming (plus sometimes a pre-requisite for it): - reading - writing - basic maths - critical analysis - building your own idea - defending yourself verbal…

my nephews asked for it. it was Minecraft that got them into it. unfortunately that also meant that they wanted to learn Java, so they will probably be put off for life.
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