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Comment by linuxftw | Hacker News Reader

We don't need to make everything kid friendly. There were no fun algebra games, you just did the work. You didn't even understand why the work was useful, you just had to do it.

When kids have the mental faculties advanced enough to learn computer programming, you teach them just like you teach algebra.

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Seeing my kid what he does/knows about numbers after watching numberblocks and playing with printouts of those little guys he’s asking for - before knowing how to read - I can’t disagree more.

The best secret of life is that you need to fall in love with practicing what you want to achieve.

There is no better way than through play.

There are many different paths to the same goal. Some kids are maybe better off just picking up C documentation and going straight for it. Some are better starting with some web based gamified psuedo language.

No. If you have to infantilize something for them, they're not capable of learning it.

I politely disagree. I have used hundreds/thousands of times in my life the "ELI5" method to explain anything and everything from IT security to budgeting, and it helps people understand. It will bore some of the audience in a call, but it will get the job done.

Kids learn to read with children's books, not by reading Ulysses

That's an age appropriate activity. They don't make a children's calculus book.

There are varying degrees of simplifying things, from purposely obfuscating in order to look smart or fill out your paper to the required length, to sloppily throwing an explanation together, to carefully removing unnecessary complexity and using terms your audience is familiar with, to oversimplifying to the point where there information you're giving is actually bad. Maybe that last one is what you mean by 'infantilizing '.

Always pick the third option, regardless of who you're talking to, to maximize your chance of getting your point across.

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