The True Value of Coding It Teaches You to Think Differently Gene Luen-Yang Big Think

The True Value of Coding It Teaches You to Think Differently Watch the newest video from Big Think a https 3A 2F 2Fbigth ink 2FNewVideo a Join Big Think Edge for exclusive videos a https 3A 2F 2Fbigth ink 2FEdge a ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- As a high school teacher for 17 years Gene Luen-Yang experienced the highs and lows of teaching computer science Initially offered as a standalone course at Bishop O Dowd High School where Luen-Yang taught faculty came to believe that computer science was so essential that it be integrated into every subject Still interest in learning coding among students varied with market fortunes When the dotcom bubble burst in the late 1990s fewer students wanted to learn the zen of programming languages That's a shame says Luen-Yang because more than an employable skill coding is a gateway to using logic to solve large problems creatively Gene Luen Yang's most recent book is Paths Portals ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- GENE LUEN-YANG Gene Luen Yang began making comics and graphic novels in the fifth grade In 2006 his book American Born Chinese was published by First Second Books It became the first graphic novel to be nominated for a National Book Award and the first to win the American Library Association s Printz Award It also won an Eisner Award for Best Graphic Album New In 2013 First Second Books released Boxers Saints a two-volume graphic novel about the Boxer Rebellion Boxers Saints was nominated for a National Book Award and won the L A Times Book Prize He s done a number of other comics including Dark Horse Comics continuation of the popular Nickelodeon cartoon Avatar The Last Airbender and DC Comics Superman In addition to cartooning he teaches creative writing through Hamline University s MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults I teach alongside amazing authors like Anne Ursu Gary Schmidt Laura Ruby Matt De La Pena and more In January 2016 the Library of Congress Every Child A Reader and the Children s Book Council appointed Gene as the National Ambassador for Young People s Literature Yang was named to the 2016 class of the MacArthur Fellows Program receiving what is commonly called the Genius Grant The MacArthur Foundation that names the fellows said that his work for young adults demonstrates the potential of comics to broaden our understanding of diverse cultures and people ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- TRANSCRIPT GENE LUEN YANG I was a high school computer science teacher for 17 years I taught at Bishop O Dowd High School in Oakland California I taught during the dotcom boom I taught during the dotcom bust and I taught during sort of the recovery of the tech industry afterwards and I did see the interest in what I was teaching fluctuate It would go up and down every year largely tied to the economy which was a little bit weird to me And even as a school you know when I began to teach in the late 90s the school itself actually had a computer requirement You were required to take a certain number of computer classes before you were allowed to graduate They got rid of that requirement They got rid of that requirement because at some point they felt like computer literacy was so important that it ought to be integrated in all the other subjects So it shouldn t be a thing in and of itself So in the beginning I agreed with that But after seeing how it played out I don t think it was as effective as we wanted it to be you know I think that computers are still a fairly specialized type of knowledge computer science And teachers today still I don t think we ve been trained on how to integrate computer science well into the other subjects So ultimately what ended up happening at that school site was we would graduate students who would know how to use computers but would not necessarily understand how they worked or even understand how to maximize what they could get out of the computer As a computer science teacher something I used to talk to parents about especially during the dotcom bust when interest in my class started to evaporate is coding is not about training students how to type into a computer That s the least of it Coding is actually really about training students to think in a certain way It s about training students to take large and complex problems and break them up into small pieces It s about training students to take things that are vague that are difficult to wrap your mind around and putting them into concrete sequential steps Read the full transcript at a https 3A 2F 2Fbigthink com 2Fvideos 2Fgene-luen-yang-the-true-value-of-coding-it-teaches-you-to-think-differently a

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