Comment by neovive | Hacker News Reader

Comment by neovive | Hacker News Reader

I've been running a weekend programming club for grades 3-5 using Scratch (scratch.mit.edu) and notice some of Chris' points first-hand. For those unfamiliar, Scratch provides a LEGO-like programming environment--it's roots go back to LOGO.

After much initial enthusiasm, the club is down to a core group of dedicated students. The drop-off started when I switched from directed instruction to self-guided projects. Although Scratch contains a relatively small set of core programming blocks, the amount detail involved in building moderately-complex programs (multi-level games, scrolling, interaction) is a lot to overcome for someone without experience. I think some of it relates to the "fundamental disconnect" discussed: A student might be thinking "I want the background to follow the goblin," but needs to translate that into code blocks not part of his/her everyday language. It takes practice and experience to learn the computer's vocabulary for describing a process.

practice, experience AND intelligence

I would venture to say that what you focus on in your comment runs explicitly counter to what the GP was trying to emphasize in their post. For the people who teach kids of grades 3-5/ages 8-10, I doubt that they are in the business of dissuading children who are apparently "not intelligent" by whatever metric you imply. Kids at that age deserve every open door that can be given to them, and implicitly shutting them out of a computer science club because they can't immediately grok how to do the described task is doing the entire community a disservice. The lesson to be learned isn't that some kids can't (or won't ever) cut it, it's that the learned elders need to formulate better ways of passing along programming knowledge to the younger generation.

Great points. It's very important not to classify at such a young age. Kids in the club are encouraged to try new things, experiment, make mistakes and have fun without worrying about assessments or grades. There are no success rubrics and the computer, in this situation, is just a tool for creative expression--like LEGO or clay. Scratch works well since it's very approachable and is a fun introduction to computer programming as creative tool.

The drop-off effect is normal, just as some people choose to stop art and music classes after an initial introduction. For some, there is a "fundamental disconnect" when expressing themselves creatively with music or art and they will naturally gravitate away from those areas. However, a child should not be excluded from art class for not being able to draw a perfect portrait.

My hope is that being introduced to programming concepts in this club forms mental models that can be referenced later on when learning other subjects and, perhaps, motivate some students to further explore computer science. Either outcome is a success.

i didn't say anything about screening kids out at that age -- i'm not sure where that came from?! i was simply pointing out that there is another very important factor in explaining success at cognitively demanding tasks like programming .

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