
Teaching Tech Together - walterbell
http://teachtogether.tech/
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pjm331
I'm curious to see some examples of rule 6

> Never hesitate to sacrifice truth for clarity.

My initial thought is that it is saying that it is OK to omit some details if
they would only serve to confuse learners based on what they currently know?

for example - I volunteer with CodeNation teaching HTML/CSS/JS to high school
students and we don't explain that `$` is an alias for the `jQuery` object, or
any other details about it - because they don't need to fully understand that
to start working with it.

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MarcScott
You're absolutely right. It's basically lies to children
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lie-to-
children](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lie-to-children))

Their mental models aren't sufficiently complex enough to truly understand the
truth, so don't bother peeling away the layers of abstraction, just teach them
what they need to know to be successful. Eventually, as they advance, they'll
gain a more complex understanding, and get closer to the truth.

When teaching physical computing I use a python library called gpiozero
([https://gpiozero.readthedocs.io/en/stable/](https://gpiozero.readthedocs.io/en/stable/)).
This lets kids write code such as:

    
    
      from gpiozero import LED
      red = LED(17)
      red.on()
    

to light an LED. They don't need to know that the led class is inherited from
a generic output device. They don't need to know that the `on` method means
the gpio pin they are using is `high` or that it's outputting around 3.3V.
They just need to know that when they run the code, the LED turns on.

When/if they go on to learn more, the layers of abstraction can be removed and
they can learn more about what is going on under the hood.

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throwawayjava
I've always felt US mathematics education is a case study in what happens when
"lies for children" goes terribly wrong because the teachers never actually
encounter a version of the field that isn't a lie.

My experience volunteering in an AP CS class makes me wonder if something
similar is happening in K12 CS at the moment. The students knew by heart the
JavaDoc for String.format but struggled with loops. The teacher also struggled
with simple nested for loops. Kind of made me want to throw away the damn
laptops and just spend some time solving problems on pencil and paper...

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good-idea
This is an amazing resource. Thank you!

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moarsel
Nothing but praise for Greg's work, I've worked with him in person and his
evidence based approach works wonders.

Apply the lessons in the book anytime you need to teach people then you'll
realize how much time you wasted before. Many of the lessons are not limited
to technical subjects either.

Building a concept map, for example, forces you to distill what you're trying
to teach instead of trying to cram as much knowledge as you can into a lesson.

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russh
This is useful to me. Thanks!

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walterbell
Corrected URL: [http://teachtogether.tech/](http://teachtogether.tech/)

~~~
dang
Fixed. Thanks!

