Teaching coding

I assume computer literacy in the younger generation is pretty universal, and so far in my experience teaching kids that has proven to be more or less true, but every so often I am reminded that my experiences are not universal, and this country is friggin' huge.

I taught a remote class today and yesterday, meaning I sat at home and dialed in to a classroom where the kids were and taught over a projector and screen sharing meeting software. There are also staff in the room, but their job is just managing the class, keeping the kids from yelling and running around, that sort of thing. My class consisted of middle school kids, the oldest group I have yet taught, and we were learning Python, a real, object oriented programming language that is rapidly becoming ubiquitous. A good language to teach new coders. This particular class was from the Oklahoma Choctaw Nation.

Going in I made assumptions that anyone wanting to take a class like this had some sort of coding experience, even if it was just in Scratch, I also assumed a certain level of typing proficiency and familiarity with keyboard shortcuts, like copy/past commands and so on.

That was not the case.

I had nineteen kids in the class, and not even one of them had any of the knowledge I mentioned. They were all familiar with computers and into Youtube, video games, and so on, based on language used I think some were into various fandom sites as well, but not a one had even an inkling of coding or programming terms. I've taught literal kindergartners here in Portland who new more about this stuff.

That isn't to say these kids are stupid mind you, day one was a bit rough, we had a lot of content to plow through while bringing them up to speed on practices for coding, particularly in the area of being cautious about typos, but by day two it was clear that they were starting to think differently, the questions became different, less "what is wrong?" and more "This is wrong, how do I fix it?". That may not sound like much to you, but it is a pretty big step for learning stuff and we got through a lot more work on the second day, they aren't Python experts by any stretch, but they may be able to study on their own more easily now and if they took another camp, even if it was in a different language, they will probably have an easier time adjusting.

It wasn't just the kids either, the teachers who were on site also didn't know anything about coding, they were perfectly tech literate enough to operate their end of the meeting software and projectors and such, but were no help whatsoever in troubleshooting any coding issues the students had.

Being surprised about that is probably due to my biases more than anything, I have lived around people who are interested and comfortable with information technology for years, virtually all of my friends know something about coding, even if it is just a bit of vaguely remembered theory from a college course, there are tons of tech companies in Portland and lots of resources to learn things online and in person. I can't say definitively what the Choctaw Nation has out there in Oklahoma, but my guess is it isn't quite that tech focused.

All that said, I had a pretty decent time teaching and by the end the kids were enjoying themselves and thanked me for helping them learn, which I find weird because I get that in my regular classes, do "real" teachers get those thanks too? I feel like I am doing what is expected of someone who is supposed to be teaching by helping them learn and being patient so it seems strange to get praised for that.

I like the online format, both because I am lazy and because of it's ability to reach out to communities who wouldn't otherwise be able to access resources like a coding camp, I am totally onboard with the idea that everyone should know how to code, or at least know a bit about how code works, we can't escape computers or information technology, it will be here until we are gone, so for our own good, we need to know how machines "think" and the basic logic behind programs and especially algorithms that determine what we see on our news feeds and video sites.

All in all it was a positive experience, and a good lesson to keep in mind that not everyone starts from the same knowledge base.