Notes on teaching and developer education

I’ve been teaching Computer Science for almost as long as I’ve been a technical writer, and it’s always been fascinating how the two can feel both identical and nothing alike at the same time. They’re centered around delivering information, but the goals are completely different.

As a technical writer, if I create an API guide, success is when someone can integrate the service into their project using only that guide. I’m happy when they’re making calls and receiving the responses they expect; whether or not they understand how things work on the other side is secondary. Like I said in my last blog post, the goal is getting them from A to B with as little friction as possible.

With teaching, however, the goal is getting people to understand how you get from A to B, and friction is a key ingredient. It’s the ingredient.

Just two years ago, “disillusioned” was the last word I would have used to describe my feelings towards teaching. Today, nearly a year since the last time I was in a classroom, it’s the first word that comes to mind.

If I had to name a reason, I’d say that I couldn’t get my students to ignore the solve-every-problem-set-instantly app right in front of them.

The students in the first cohort I ever taught would put their number guessing game Python scripts on a billboard if they could. The students in my last cohort would hand me production-ready apps without so much as a flicker of emotion.

I’m not here to say whether that’s good or bad for them. What I will say is that it’s been devastating for me, because it’s taken the joy out of teaching.