Teaching my 10 year old niece how to program. • Hacker News Board

Re: Teaching my 10 year old niece how to program.

#41

Post by ken » Thu, Aug 30, 2012, 4:35 PM UTC

cygwin98 wrote: post #6

I respect the efforts the author put in to teach kids how to program. That being said, I really don't think HTML/Javascript is the right choice for kids. The web stack is even considered messy from professional web programers' perspective. My son will turn seven soon. I did some research on programming languages/kits for kids around that age. I finally settled down on Robomind, which is more or less of a modern varia…

The programming environment on my C=64 was messy, too. But kids are pretty smart, and they can be especially determined when they see they can make a real computer program.

That's a reason I like Javascript. It's not the best language, but you can write something that looks just like any real webpage.

As a kid I never liked software that was kind of like a game with a little programming environment inside: they weren't good games, and they weren't good programming environments.

Re: Teaching my 10 year old niece how to program.

#42

Post by pulplobster » Thu, Aug 30, 2012, 4:35 PM UTC

EliRivers wrote: post #38

jessriedel wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> is there something about programming that makes people think it should be done by everyone? Yes.

Is it possible for you to expand on this? To give just one example, plumbing is far more fundamental to civilisation and we're happy to have a trained cadre of plumbers, and for most people to go their whole lives with no knowledge of it. Do plumbers wander round shaking their heads and wondering why nobody else knows how to do it?

I'd say for a number of reasons they're different. Plumbing, while probably useful at some point in your life, is just one activity. Programming is NOT just one thing. It's closer to woodshop (which I hope is still in schools...). Another difference I think is that you can create something bigger with it, something that scales. Last but not least, I think it's inherently fun and fulfilling to create something out of nothing, but I'll admit that it's not for everyone. But neither is woodshop or gym class. I'd also say that teaching some programming along side math could have some benefits to learning and motivation.

Re: Teaching my 10 year old niece how to program.

#43

Post by brianobush » Thu, Aug 30, 2012, 4:38 PM UTC

EliRivers wrote: post #34

Are there plumbing pages where people teach their children to plumb, or dry-walling speciality sites where folks discuss how to get their kids into plasterwork? Is this just a few cases, or is there something about programming that makes people think it should be done by everyone? I recall not so long ago a thread about how programming should be taught at school alongside English (read "mastery of relevant language"…

programming hones logic and abstract thought. these skills underly almost any endeavor that humans tackle.

Re: Teaching my 10 year old niece how to program.

#44

Post by patio11 » Thu, Aug 30, 2012, 4:41 PM UTC

EliRivers wrote: post #34

Are there plumbing pages where people teach their children to plumb, or dry-walling speciality sites where folks discuss how to get their kids into plasterwork? Is this just a few cases, or is there something about programming that makes people think it should be done by everyone? I recall not so long ago a thread about how programming should be taught at school alongside English (read "mastery of relevant language"…

Are there plumbing pages where people teach their children to plumb, or dry-walling speciality sites where folks discuss how to get their kids into plasterwork?

That sort of thing is quite popular with Boy Scouts and the like. You can get a special magazine for fun father&son activities like The Joy of Spackle. Totally not joking.

Re: Teaching my 10 year old niece how to program.

#45

Post by ehsanu1 » Thu, Aug 30, 2012, 4:43 PM UTC

biotech wrote: post #36

This is great. I'm working with a local elementary school teacher this fall to teach kids (9-10 year olds) programming. We plan to use Scratch as it gives immediate results and demonstrates many core programming concepts (variables, loops, conditionals, etc). If they take to it very quickly, we may try a real programming language. If anyone has experience teaching kids this age programming, or if you know of any reso…

Khan Academy has a pretty amazing live environment inside the browser: http://khanacademy.org/cs

It's been tested to work pretty well with middle school children, so it seems right up your alley. John Resig (creator of jQuery) made it happen, his blog post on it: http://ejohn.org/blog/introducing-khan-cs/

Re: Teaching my 10 year old niece how to program.

#46

Post by EliRivers » Thu, Aug 30, 2012, 4:46 PM UTC

brianobush wrote: post #43

EliRivers wrote: post #34

Are there plumbing pages where people teach their children to plumb, or dry-walling speciality sites where folks discuss how to get their kids into plasterwork? Is this just a few cases, or is there something about programming that makes people think it should be done by everyone? I recall not so long ago a thread about how programming should be taught at school alongside English (read "mastery of relevant language"…

programming hones logic and abstract thought. these skills underly almost any endeavor that humans tackle.

We already have a subject taught for that. Maths. As an aside, to the extent that when we're hiring fresh grad programmers, their maths ability is a better indication of future quality than their programming ability. We find it easier to teach people who can think how to program than the other way around.

Re: Teaching my 10 year old niece how to program.

#47

Post by anuraj » Thu, Aug 30, 2012, 4:47 PM UTC

Being an architect and developer for the last 14 years I should confess that I would not want my kids or anybody I love to choose software as a career. The job can become repetitive, alienate yourself from social circles and you may loose all zest for outdoors. It is a job that can work for people of certain temperament (which I believe I am one of), but rarely the best thing you can do in life. Having a great life is important than developing software.

Re: Teaching my 10 year old niece how to program.

#48

Post by dhughes » Thu, Aug 30, 2012, 4:57 PM UTC

dfischer wrote: post #19

There's a great open source initiative to teach kids programming called Kids Ruby: http://www.kidsruby.org Anyone can host a class anywhere or just use the kidsruby program.

Redditor Carlh's site is good too http://www.computerscienceforeveryone.com/

Re: Teaching my 10 year old niece how to program.

#49

Post by elliottcarlson » Thu, Aug 30, 2012, 4:58 PM UTC

drharris wrote: post #13

arkitaip wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or maybe we're expecting too much of the school system when it should be the responsibility of parents to teach their skills valuable skills. School isn't the solution to all our problems.

Agreed. By definition, school has to cater to the average. It's meant to provide a baseline for society. There are no rules that education must be contained within the school grounds. The way I see it, they handle the boring stuff like geography so I can spend time on teaching fun stuff like computing!

As long as we cater to the average, we are allowing the average to be brought down by underachievers - we need to draw a line somewhere. Moving to the US from Europe to start my Sophomore year of high school was a real shock - even with any language and cultural barriers I was being taught things that I had learned years before that. I ended up dropping out, not because I couldn't keep up, but because I was actually bored in school and just couldn't stand not learning something new. I regret not having a real diploma and just a GED - but other than that I have no regrets. It hasn't hindered my job prospects and I have come far enough on my own.

Back to my original point; I think the education system needs to raise the bar slightly above average and attempt to make children reach for their goals.

Re: Teaching my 10 year old niece how to program.

#50

Post by dkhenry » Thu, Aug 30, 2012, 4:58 PM UTC

arkitaip wrote: post #7

dkhenry wrote: post #3

I am continually amazed at the capabilities of kids. Their ability to understand whats presented to them is astounding. I really think one of the problems with the education system is we have this idea that everyone must progress in all areas at the same rate, and we stop teaching kids new things until they understand the set of things they "should" know for their age. In a structured school system she wouldn't be al…

Or maybe we're expecting too much of the school system when it should be the responsibility of parents to teach their skills valuable skills. School isn't the solution to all our problems.

So as a parent why can't I demand a system I pay for to provide that kind of service to my children ? In the realm of computers its ok, I know computers, and can fill in , but what if my child takes an interest to chemistry ? As a society we can ( and should ) be able to provide the depth of education to our kids that they will be able to absorb.