"This is python, we use it to do professional development work. Here's VS code, we use it to do professional development work. Let's learn them."
6 year olds: "Okay!"
Proceeds to mangle whitespace, variable names, scope, indexing, ==, forgets :, doesn't understand what def is, even after they get all that the program is basically "hello world" print to console.
6 year olds: "Programming is hard and frustrating with little payoff, I don't want to do this anymore"
The one 6 year who who will grow up to be a greybeard sysadmin "This stuff is great! I can't wait to learn more!"
Teachers: "I have no idea what I'm doing, the devs keep saying how Python is supposed to be easy and it's built for learning, but I'm just as confused as the kids."
--
Here's how teaching kids goes with scratch:
"This is scratch, you snape these colored shapes together and they do things like make this character move"
6 year olds: "Okay!"
Proceeds to make games and stories with graphics, sounds and interaction, which they share with their friends, fully editable and runnable in a web environment with zero setup: https://scratch.mit.edu
6 year olds: "Wow programming is fun! I can't wait to learn more!"
The one 6 year who who will grow up to be a greybeard sysadmin "I agree this stuff is great! I can't wait to learn more!"
Teachers: "It wasn't hard to get up and running with scratch, it's very easy to teach and I get it."
Comments
Here's how teaching kids goes without scratch:
"This is python, we use it to do professional development work. Here's VS code, we use it to do professional development work. Let's learn them."
6 year olds: "Okay!"
Proceeds to mangle whitespace, variable names, scope, indexing, ==, forgets :, doesn't understand what def is, even after they get all that the program is basically "hello world" print to console.
6 year olds: "Programming is hard and frustrating with little payoff, I don't want to do this anymore"
The one 6 year who who will grow up to be a greybeard sysadmin "This stuff is great! I can't wait to learn more!"
Teachers: "I have no idea what I'm doing, the devs keep saying how Python is supposed to be easy and it's built for learning, but I'm just as confused as the kids."
--
Here's how teaching kids goes with scratch:
"This is scratch, you snape these colored shapes together and they do things like make this character move"
6 year olds: "Okay!"
Proceeds to make games and stories with graphics, sounds and interaction, which they share with their friends, fully editable and runnable in a web environment with zero setup: https://scratch.mit.edu
6 year olds: "Wow programming is fun! I can't wait to learn more!"
The one 6 year who who will grow up to be a greybeard sysadmin "I agree this stuff is great! I can't wait to learn more!"
Teachers: "It wasn't hard to get up and running with scratch, it's very easy to teach and I get it."