Pamela Fox, from Khan Academy:
These campaigns are telling students that "coding is easy," and then they're trying it, and now not only are they struggling to learn something new, but they're feeling bad about themselves because hey, "coding is easy", they shouldn't be struggling.
Nobody should feel bad for struggling to learn something new. They should be commended for trying to learn something new at all.
It's interesting that most founders are brazen and keen to tackle a load of business challenges, figuring things out and learning new skills - but we often put "the technical stuff" in another category. Then, the only solution seems to be finding a tech cofounder.
I was introducing JavaScript to a few Roma kids the other day, and they asked "will this be easy or hard?" I had to fight my first instinct to make say easy, but I still wanted it to feel achievable. " My answer: "It's gonna be hard, but you're smart." They got mentally prepared-one step closer to being self-educating hackers, rather than "learning to code."
Coding is getting easier to teach and learn, due to recent pedagogical advances. It's still not easy though - the question is, why is this stopping you?
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