I love how coding is quickly becoming an accepted part of education, rather than an obscure thing you can do with nerds.
My kid just started school, he's 4 years old. Once a week or so they have a class where they have a TA dress up as a robot and they think about how to give him instructions to do stuff. Sounds really fun, and very far away from the rather dry things you could be doing later on. Hopefully the transition to actual coding will not be rough.
I have been doing it myself, just little game with kids where for example I am a robot, they sit on my shoulder and to go somewhere they can only use the words for the 4 directions or 'rotate'. It's nice to see how quickly they learn how to use the commands to get out of (literally) tight spots. Less fun when they realize it's hilarious to make me walk into walls, but hey...
As someone who was bullied for being a nerd, your statement is very triggering. Do you think there is a way we can encourage all people to explore tech without denigrating people with certain personality types/interests?
I think lordnacho has a point, in that programming was previously considered to be an unworthy pursuit and considered antisocial (the arena of the so-called nerds). It's great that school-aged children are now being widely encouraged to explore coding.
Not only that but programmers and STEM professions are starting to be highlighted in pop culture in very positive ways such as Big Hero 6.
Contrast that with movies from the 80s or 90s and geeky types might have been heroic, but it was always despite them being geeky, not because of it. Like it came with social baggage they needed to overcome vs being their source of power.
Well, of course. If you look at the sort of thing ordinary people are interested in, programming is now quite prominent in several respects:
- Every interesting business requires programmers. Uber, AirBnB, Tesla, Facebook, Google -everything that is making headlines- require coders as a key ingredient, rather than as waterboys. That wasn't always the case when I was growing up.
- It's clear for everyone to see that coding jobs pay better than most jobs.
- There's a degree to which coding jobs are interesting which is becoming ever more clear to people. Where jargon was once a sign that you were a nerd, now it's a sign that you're informed on some of the things driving modern society.
I'm also a nerd (and proudly so, to this day) and I was bullied for it in school.
But I don't see the parent calling people nerds in a negative light. It can be read that they think programming is no longer being thought of as something you can only do with kids who are especially interested in that kind of thing, but instead can be taught to all kids. "Nerd" was just their shorthand for kids who are interested in logic and knowledge more than other kids.
I guess the comment triggers me in the same way as reading "you don't have to be effeminate or gay to be a male ballet dancer" might trigger some people.
While it doesn't directly paint gay or effeminate men in a negative light, it also doesn't do enough to distance itself from the negative stigma men who don't follow traditional male roles face.
I think that non-nerdy people can't understand what it's really like to be nerdy. They attribute things to nerds (like acne or hubris) that aren't actually part of what a nerd really is. They just see a partial pattern and then paint the whole group with it.
Attempting to educate them about this doesn't really help, IMO. It's just extra stress, and so I try to just ignore their ignorance and go on my way.
Plus, I've noticed that kids these days put intelligence on a pedestal, and that's been awesome to see. The idea of a whole generation growing up and respecting people who can think well... I love it.
Programming has been added to the national curriculum in my country!
While awesome, the disconnect between what a teacher says they can do, and what is actually in their skillset is causing problems.
They teach Scratch in a school I work with, from the 3rd Grade till 5th.
I was asked to observe a teacher, after all their students got perfect scores, but when asked questions like, "How do you do something repeatedly?" and "How can you group commands together?" we got shrugs.
The teacher was dictating from a blog post... So not teaching.
I pulled aside the teacher, who was a math teacher, afraid of computers, and explained Lambda Calculus, and then explained Scratch in terms of that.
The teacher proudly showed me, a week later, that they made a number guessing game in Scratch. Cool, but why would I trust you to teach my child?
The principal is finally considering whether they should hire a programmer, one day a week, for the 8 classes taught in the primary school level.
Managers can be difficult when explaining needs. Schools despise changing anything, why do you need someone who knows programming to teach it? Any teacher can teach.
Really surprised that there was no mention of Raspberry Pi.
As soon as they hit 6 or 7 (or an age where they can sit down and not have to fidget), buy them a Raspberry Pi. Possibilities are endless, you can have weekend projects where you build and play a video game or install a camera etc. (Plenty of well-written guides and demos online)
Not only can they have a great time learning and playing with a real piece of technology but it can teach delayed gratification, putting in X amount of time building something before they can reap the benefits.
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[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 33.6 ms ] threadMy kid just started school, he's 4 years old. Once a week or so they have a class where they have a TA dress up as a robot and they think about how to give him instructions to do stuff. Sounds really fun, and very far away from the rather dry things you could be doing later on. Hopefully the transition to actual coding will not be rough.
Contrast that with movies from the 80s or 90s and geeky types might have been heroic, but it was always despite them being geeky, not because of it. Like it came with social baggage they needed to overcome vs being their source of power.
- Every interesting business requires programmers. Uber, AirBnB, Tesla, Facebook, Google -everything that is making headlines- require coders as a key ingredient, rather than as waterboys. That wasn't always the case when I was growing up.
- It's clear for everyone to see that coding jobs pay better than most jobs.
- There's a degree to which coding jobs are interesting which is becoming ever more clear to people. Where jargon was once a sign that you were a nerd, now it's a sign that you're informed on some of the things driving modern society.
But I don't see the parent calling people nerds in a negative light. It can be read that they think programming is no longer being thought of as something you can only do with kids who are especially interested in that kind of thing, but instead can be taught to all kids. "Nerd" was just their shorthand for kids who are interested in logic and knowledge more than other kids.
While it doesn't directly paint gay or effeminate men in a negative light, it also doesn't do enough to distance itself from the negative stigma men who don't follow traditional male roles face.
I think that non-nerdy people can't understand what it's really like to be nerdy. They attribute things to nerds (like acne or hubris) that aren't actually part of what a nerd really is. They just see a partial pattern and then paint the whole group with it.
Attempting to educate them about this doesn't really help, IMO. It's just extra stress, and so I try to just ignore their ignorance and go on my way.
Plus, I've noticed that kids these days put intelligence on a pedestal, and that's been awesome to see. The idea of a whole generation growing up and respecting people who can think well... I love it.
While awesome, the disconnect between what a teacher says they can do, and what is actually in their skillset is causing problems.
They teach Scratch in a school I work with, from the 3rd Grade till 5th.
I was asked to observe a teacher, after all their students got perfect scores, but when asked questions like, "How do you do something repeatedly?" and "How can you group commands together?" we got shrugs.
The teacher was dictating from a blog post... So not teaching.
I pulled aside the teacher, who was a math teacher, afraid of computers, and explained Lambda Calculus, and then explained Scratch in terms of that.
The teacher proudly showed me, a week later, that they made a number guessing game in Scratch. Cool, but why would I trust you to teach my child?
The principal is finally considering whether they should hire a programmer, one day a week, for the 8 classes taught in the primary school level.
Managers can be difficult when explaining needs. Schools despise changing anything, why do you need someone who knows programming to teach it? Any teacher can teach.
As soon as they hit 6 or 7 (or an age where they can sit down and not have to fidget), buy them a Raspberry Pi. Possibilities are endless, you can have weekend projects where you build and play a video game or install a camera etc. (Plenty of well-written guides and demos online)
Not only can they have a great time learning and playing with a real piece of technology but it can teach delayed gratification, putting in X amount of time building something before they can reap the benefits.
http://www.hanselminutes.com/547/hello-ruby-with-linda-liuka...