Computer science and technology for a "non-science" teacher

4 points by Eruntalon ↗ HN
I'm a brazilian literature and language teacher, I teach kids in the elementary and high school and I really love what I do, but some time ago, before I was selected to work as a teacher for the state, I started studying about programming and technology since I wasn't making ends meet as a private English teacher and I was aiming into a job in the tech field. I started on this road thinking it would be almost impossible for me to understand computing in a deeper level, but then I found out that it was something feasible, actually I was having fun learnign something new (namely I started studying Python and I was peeking into SQL and Data Science before I had to focus on my teaching carreer).

Now that I'm working more closely to kids (many of them from the lower class) I can see that as much as they need basic education they also need to be properly introduced to programming, computer science and actual scientific thinking, otherwise I think they might follow a sort of helpless mentality most of their schools years.

Since I'm not the math or science teacher I think people around the school find it weird that I want to work with that, but I know that these are subjects that can involve and be practiced by anybody in a school comunity.

What sources, books, or projects would you suggest to start working these subjects with the kids?

(I know it was a sort of long post but it felt like it needed some context)

3 comments

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I enjoyed "From Nand to Tetris: Building a Modern Computer From First Principles"

https://www.nand2tetris.org/

It shows some of the basics of how a modern computer works. The lessons are like little puzzles and can be engaging. It should be pretty accessible to kids. You do need access to computers to complete the work though.