Scratch programming4/11/2023 ![]() ![]() This is too hard,” it’s difficult not to reflexively reply, “No, it’s not. They must be pitifully stupid.Įven, a wonderful organization that’s done amazing work to promote CS education, makes this same mistake with their tagline, “: Anybody can learn.” They might as well say, “: You’d have to be an idiot not to get it.” Students secretly crave challenges If they’re bad at it, there’s no hope for them. If they’re good at it, congrats on being good at a little-kid language. Older students don’t want to use Scratch because there’s nothing to gain from it and plenty to lose. While this does a great job of making it seem inviting for younger students, it has a perverse psychological effect on older kids. “But, but, but…” Sam sobbed, looking hurt, “But why would they make it look so easy then? They make it look like it’s for babies!” Scratch Has a Marketing ProblemĮverywhere they look, students get the impression that Scratch was designed for young children and is easy. You can do incredibly complex stuff with it.” “Scratch is supposed to be easy and I couldn’t even do the first step.” Sam sighed heavily. “Why do you think you can’t do it?” I asked, “It’s only been a few minutes.” “I’m terrible at this,” Sam shook his head. As I walked with him out of the classroom, I asked what was wrong. “If it’s too easy, we’ll move you to JavaScript.” I haven’t done it since I was in 3rd grade.” When I suggested he start in Scratch, he shrugged. Sam represented himself as a true nerd, proudly telling the class he memorized over 150 digits of pi, and has been to many technology and science camps. Last month, this brought a 12-year-old boy to tears in my class. There’s a lot for you to learn in it before you’ll be ready for JavaScript.” But nobody wanted to hear it. “No! You don’t understand,” I pleaded with students. Even worse, they actively avoided it because it’s “babyish.” We’ve found it!” Scratch Seems Too EasyĪs it turns out, I was late to the party. It’s intrinsically motivating to make something that you can immediately share with your friends and family, so students continue to work on Scratch projects at home simply for the fun of it.Īfter this revelation, I was excited to share Scratch with the world, “Hey everyone! The search for the best first programming language is over. This means that you don’t have to motivate students with the carrot and stick approach of homework, grades, and tests to use Scratch. ![]() Students enjoy making video games almost as much as they love playing them. Block-based programming enables beginner programmers to focus 100% of their mental energy on the design and logic of their programs, not the semantics.Įven better, Scratch was designed to create video games and stories. In text-based coding, if you forget a semicolon, your program might not even run, but Scratch won’t even let you make that mistake. There are only a few dozen, so creating blocks for them saves time, and more importantly, prevents 70% of errors new programmers face. ![]() There aren’t a million different words, phrases, and sentence structures. I scoured the Internet for books and tips on how to teach kids to code and everywhere I looked, there was Scratch. So I went back to the drawing board, looking for the right programming language for my students. With some students, it seemed impossible.īefore my eyes, the students that were excited to do “real coding,” began to label themselves as “bad at coding” the same way students have learned to label themselves “bad at math.” I felt like I was doing more harm than good, teaching students coding languages they weren’t ready for. It’s hard to teach “real coding.” Really hard. It’s not real coding.” So I taught students Python, Java, HTML, CSS, and JavaScript - real programming languages that you type, not silly blocks. Every student over the age of 12 seemed to agree with my diagnosis. ![]()
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