A National Tragedy - What Teens Aren't Being Taught. A lot of interesting things have happened to me over the years - fodder for stories. Today as I was reflecting about what parents do and do not teach their teens, I remembered one of those gems. I was 22 years old, and it was the morning after my bride and I had returned from our honeymoon road trip out West. For the first time in my life I asked my wife a simple question I would ask thousands of times throughout my life: "What would you like to do for breakfast? " "I don't know. What would you like? " I decided to keep it simple and easy. Then she told me she wasn't sure how to cook fried eggs. At the time, I didn't ask myself why this was so. But sometime later I did reflect on that. And then: Her mother was a gourmet cook.
Today, I think a lot about the things that teenagers don't learn. And of course that isn't true. Imagine the enormous advantage a teen would have if he or she was coached in these areas before starting a career! Yes, it's a "full plate," as I like to put it. The "Invent with Python" Blog — Nobody Wants to Learn How to Program. I frequently see a problem when people (especially techies) try to teach programming to someone (especially non-techies).
Many programming tutorials begin with basic programming principles: variables, loops, data types. This is both an obvious way to teach programming and almost certainly a wrong way to teach programming. It’s wrong because nobody wants to learn how to program. If you are teaching a class of adults who are paying with their own money for an education, then this is an appropriate and direct way to teach programming.
It’s their money. They expect that they’ll have to focus and slug through concepts to come out the other end with programming knowledge. The start-with-variables-loops-data-types approach is fine for this. But for the casually interested or schoolchildren with several activities competing for their attention, programming concepts like variables and loops and data types aren’t interesting in themselves. 1. 2. 3. I began learning BASIC in the third grade. 4. Cougars. What To Expect When You're Expecting, Pregnancy, Baby, Babies, Toddler, Parenting -- WhatToExpect.com.
NurtureShock: New Thinking About Children (9780446504126): Po Bronson, Ashley Merryman.