So I have this job teaching little kids (like elementary school students) robotics. Well I had this job (I’m leaving due to robotics season).
prelude
Teaching (well more like babysitting is what I do; I just give them a project and watch them work on it; I guess, that’s really all I’m intended to do (or capable of doing anyway)…). Anyway. Teaching is lowk a pain, especially with kids of that age absorbing all of the internet degeneracy, having no attention span, and not wanting to do what I tell them to do. I swear our generation was nicer as children. Although much of it is, like, just having to deal with little children, which I’m quite terrible at.
All that aside, though, the job is quite interesting. A lot of the kids look like me, when I was that age. Others are more like “normal”, like the type to need step-by-step instructions. To be honest, I don’t really know how to deal with the latter. I mostly catered to the former (in this blog too), maybe because it was easier, or because it was more interesting, or because I was catering to what the past me would like. The latter just got carried, usually, and like built random stuff on the side (which I allowed in a sort of salutary neglect; i need to keep my sanity somehow). Also the teamwork capability was like nonpositive, but it’s not like the weaker kids could solo.
When I find something interesting for them to do (such is hard when you’re dealing with the LEGO ecosystem), sometimes there are actually nice results (from the stronger kids). It’s lowk kinda nice to see that happen. When they don’t find stuff interesting, though, they don’t do it. LOL. And then they become a pain to deal with. Especially this one smart kid who finds nothing interesting and builds random distractions on the side.
Anyway, I’m not here to talk about teaching or children. But over the course of teaching them I’ve seen some stuff happen, that I think are quite insightful outside of this simple scope.
“you’re copying me!!! stop copying me!!!”
Perhaps like the thing I hear the most, in all the classes. I’ve heard this at robotics too, from elementary school even to HS.
But, is copying a bad thing? Is it really a bad thing as we all presume it to be?
I tell my students that copying is ok. And here’s why:
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Copying is not easy
Go ahead. Try it. Everyone thinks that copying is easy or something, so it’s like cheating in a way. But copying is definitely not easy. Perhaps it is easier than reinventing it yourself, but it is definitely not trivial.
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Copying is how you learn
A lot of time copying looks easier than it seems. But the truth is, the hard part is often in reconstructing the details. And to copy means to learn to reconstruct these details, which is a huge part of learning. Of course, coming up with something original is another (perhaps better) way to learn about the details, but copying is like the next best way.
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Copying is updating
Why do we copy? Oftentimes (I see this with my students and also many robotics teams), we copy because it is simply a better design, that’s just simply better than the original. The act of copying itself is a sort of update, to acknowledge that “that’s better, we should do something like that”. And knowing other designs and why they’re better is learning.
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Do better
If you copy, you should always try to do better. Oftentimes you can improve on whatever you copy.
Some people are afraid of being copied because they think whoever’s copying them will do exceed them. But really, they should be trying to do better themselves.
Regardless, if something is done better, it is progress. And the more people who copy and try to do better, the more progress.
teaching is bad, sometimes.
I’ve taught, like actually taught, for perhaps less than 10 minutes total, over all my classes. And most of these were like small tips or suggestions. I’ve never taught anything on a larger scale.
And part of it was because the students are unwilling to learn. (Perhaps, they are not so much in the wrong here).
I think, here it’s more important to let students try stuff, and fail (or succeed), and try more stuff. Essentially they try to discover as much as they can themselves. Sometimes, they run into some problems which they don’t really have a good chance at solving themselves, and here I help them “climb out” of their local minima and propose a solution. Otherwise, it’s better for them to discover it themselves.
Plus too much handholding just leads to students not being able to do stuff themselves. Case in point: step-by-step instructions.
Or another example: this year we’ve had the best new programmer training in like 5 years on our FRC team. how I did it? I gave them something to do, and then sat back and played some tetr.io qp2.
step outside of your comfort zone
… or you’ll be stuck there forever.
My smartest student was the one who would try the stupidest things. and fail. and try again, and fail (probably).
Other students were, well, used to building the building-type LEGO and would refuse to try to motorize anything.
Don’t be afraid to fail. Failure is how you learn, anyway. I really don’t have much else to say here.
Failure is how you learn.
I really don’t have anything to say here. It’s quite obvious, right? To train a classifier is to have positive examples and negative examples. Failure is the negative example.
That’s why failure is really not a bad thing. That you fail many times in a while is just as important as succeeding once in a while. Perhaps more important. As long as you learn from it (not team 41).
some more random thoughts.
Teaching was quite interesting, that is, when it was interesting. I don’t plan on ever teaching this class again, and ideally if I ever teach again I would pick another, more mature age range. Preferably a competition team actually.
It is kinda funny watching how I (probably) was as a child tho :D.
