Should we teach high schoolers Scratch? (opens in new tab)

(garelick.net)

1 pointsjonathang6k1y ago9 comments

9 comments

I was taught Scratch in middle school and it was a great resource, even outside of programming. The group projects we did helped me develop collaboration skills that I still use today.

deodar1y ago

Yes you can make sufficiently complex programs in scratch. You do so in Brainfuck too. That doesn't make either a great choice to teach kids.

jonathang6kOP1y ago

Hmm, I’m not sure that’s a great comparison…Brainfuck is deliberately complex, and certainly not designed for learning.

deodar1y ago

I agree.. I am sorry about the flippant comparison. It was probably unfair to scratch. My frustration with Scratch stems from watching kids (including my own) being taught it in school as the de-facto option and learning absolutely nothing about programming or anything useful in the process. Perhaps it is due to bad instruction.

For the amount of time and energy invested they would have been far better off learning a "regular" language like Python. Anyway just my 2c.

Suppafly1y ago

Middle schoolers right? High schoolers should be learning actual languages, no?

jonathang6kOP1y ago

To be clear, I’m not saying high schoolers shouldn’t be learning more complex languages.

My main point is that Scratch should not be stigmatized. It can be a good introduction to get kids “hooked” :-)

Harvard even uses Scratch in their CS50 course!

https://cs50.harvard.edu/scratch/2024/

Suppafly1y ago

I don't think it should be stigmatized, I just feel that it's utility among older students, at least those interested in STEM, is limited. I've seen that with one of my own kids, hearing him complain about classes taught in visual block based languages being unable to switch to the coding based language to do things more efficiently.

>Harvard even uses Scratch in their CS50 course!

Even ignoring the 'appeal to authority' fallacy, I believe they only use scratch as an introduction to the concepts, it isn't even mentioned on the Harvard page for the larger cs50 class.

beretguy1y ago

No, not everybody needs to learn how to program.

strangattractor1y ago

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

9 comments

Vullun1y ago

I was taught Scratch in middle school and it was a great resource, even outside of programming. The group projects we did helped me develop collaboration skills that I still use today.

deodar1y ago

Yes you can make sufficiently complex programs in scratch. You do so in Brainfuck too. That doesn't make either a great choice to teach kids.

jonathang6kOP1y ago

Hmm, I’m not sure that’s a great comparison…Brainfuck is deliberately complex, and certainly not designed for learning.

deodar1y ago

For the amount of time and energy invested they would have been far better off learning a "regular" language like Python. Anyway just my 2c.

Suppafly1y ago

Middle schoolers right? High schoolers should be learning actual languages, no?

jonathang6kOP1y ago

To be clear, I’m not saying high schoolers shouldn’t be learning more complex languages.

My main point is that Scratch should not be stigmatized. It can be a good introduction to get kids “hooked” :-)

Harvard even uses Scratch in their CS50 course!

https://cs50.harvard.edu/scratch/2024/

Suppafly1y ago

>Harvard even uses Scratch in their CS50 course!

Even ignoring the 'appeal to authority' fallacy, I believe they only use scratch as an introduction to the concepts, it isn't even mentioned on the Harvard page for the larger cs50 class.

beretguy1y ago

No, not everybody needs to learn how to program.

strangattractor1y ago

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse