Programming is the missing link in education. It lets you explore, play, work with others, and fail in a safe environment. Everyone should learn to program.
The goal of a modern education is to nurture a person to adulthood, someone who is capable of solving the tough problems of tomorrow. However, in schools we are taught to memorize and regurgitate. Most students don’t come close to an exploratory, iterative, problem solving education. I want to tell you why programming is the best way to fill those gaps. No matter how old you are, programming practice is for you.
There are four fundamental aspects of learning that are most effective:
(there are many more, but you can read any blog, article, book about educational philosophy and fill in the gaps yourself).
The idea is this: if you have a problem or a goal to reach, you are free to explore options and work with trial and error at your own pace. In an environment where failure is not only OK but expected and surrounded by others facing similar problems, you will not only be empowered to solve your small problem but also build enough confidence to solve larger problems. Sound a bit idealistic? Maybe so, but it’s a good practice arena for building up the intangible skills like confidence and problem solving. When faced with a real problem (that most likely has nothing to do with programming), you will have enough on your plate trying to figure out the right answer that you want your confidence and persistence backing you up.
Programming is the perfect sandbox. Remember back to your 5-year-old days playing in the sandbox. You were taken to another world, filled with ants and dunes and trucks and shovels. Nothing played by the rules of the outside, and whatever you did in the sandbox didn’t work outside the sandbox. You were the one who moved from in to out, and the only thing that remained consistent was your knowledge from inside and out. In the case of an educational arena, programming is our sandbox. The problems we solve inside the sandbox are not necessarily relevant to the outside world, but they are interesting problems in their own right. Figuring out that you need to push the truck harder in the same doesn’t apply to the pavement next to the sandbox, but solving this greatly enhances our intra-sandbox play. The purpose of solving these problems is not to advance the world outside the sandbox, but to advance yourself within the sandbox. Since you are then free to move between the sandbox and the outside world, the skills you build inside the sandbox are immediately transferable to any problem on the outside. Inside the sandbox when you are learning about time-sharing the best shovel with three other children, you’re secretly learning the skills of cooperating on a team. Programming exercises work the same way: you learn the process of solving a problem, and take this problem-solving knowledge with you when you finish.
Why is programming an effective education?
When you start to learn programming, why start with Python in particular? A few reasons:
for number in range(-4, 5):
if number > 0:
print("positive")
else:
print("negative")What does this program do? It looks at each number in the range of numbers from -4 to 5 (non-inclusive), then checks whether the number is greater than zero or not, printing a message according to that property. Look, English!
For the average person, programming is the gateway to automation. For engineers, programming is one of many tools of the trade. For data scientists, programming is THE tool. Working at your own pace on small problems, with repetitions approximately weekly, you will train yourself in the art of problem solving and expand your confidence in solving ever larger problems. In your own ventures, in your own disciplines, in your own lives, you can make a difference.
Want to get started? Start with Exercise 1, or visit our resources for learners page to find Python books, courses, and online resources to help you along your journey.