TITLE: Learning to Think the Same, Not Write the Same
AUTHOR: Eugene Wallingford
DATE: September 13, 2011  7:17 PM
DESC: 
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BODY:
We have begun to write code in
<A HREF="http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog/archives/monthly/2011-08.html#e2011-08-26T14_29_59.htm">
   my programming languages course</A>.
The last couple of sessions we have been writing higher-order
procedures, and next time we begin a three-week unit learning
to write recursive programs following the structural recursion
patterns in my small pattern language
<A HREF="http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/patterns/recursion.html">
   Roundabout</A>.

One of the challenges for students is to learn how to use the
patterns without feeling a need to mimic my style perfectly.
Some students, especially the better ones, will chafe if I
try to make them write code exactly as I do.  They are already
good programmers in other styles, and they can become good
functional programmers without aping me.  Many will see the
patterns as a restriction on how they think, though in fact
the patterns are
<A HREF="http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog/archives/monthly/2005-03.html#e2005-03-30T10_44_45.htm">
   source of great freedom</A>.
They force you to write code in a particular way; they give
you tools for thinking about problems as you program.

Again, there is something for us to learn from our writing
brethren.  Consider a writing course like the one Roger
Rosenblatt describes in his book, <EM>Unless It Moves the
Human Heart: The Craft and Art of Writing</EM>, which I have
referred to several times, most recently in
<A HREF="http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog/archives/monthly/2011-09.html#e2011-09-08T20_19_25.htm">
   The Summer Smalltalk Taught Me OOP</A>.
No student in Rosenblatt's course wants him to expect them
to leave the course writing just like he does.  They are in
the course to learn elements of craft, to share and critique
work, and to get advice from someone with extensive experience
as a writer.  Rosenblatt is aware of this, too:

<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
Wordsworth quoted Coleridge as saying that every poet must
create the taste by which he is relished.  The same is true
of teachers.  I really don't want my students to write as I
do, but I want them to think about writing as I do.  In them
I am consciously creating a certain taste for what I believe
constitutes skillful and effective writing.
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>

The course is more about learning how to <B>think</B> about
writing as much as it is about learning how to write itself.
That's what a good pattern language can do for us: help us
learn to think about a class of problems or a class of
solutions.

I think this happens whether a teacher intends it consciously
or not.  Students learn how to think and do by observing
their teachers thinking and doing.  A programming course is
usually better if the teacher designs the course deliberately,
with careful consideration of the patterns to demonstrate and
the order in which students experience them in problems and
solutions.

In the end, I want my students to think about writing
recursive programs as I do, because experience as both a
programmer and as a teacher tells me that this way of thinking
will help them become good functional programmers as soon as
possible.  But I do not want them to write exactly as I so;
they need to find their own style, their own taste.

This is yet another example of the tremendous power teachers
wield every time they step foot in a classroom.  As a student,
I was always most fond of the teachers wielded it carefully
and deliberately.  So many of them live on in me in how I
think.  As a teacher, I have come to respect this power in my
own hands and try to wield it respectfully with my students.

P.S. For what it's worth, Coleridge is one of my favorite poets!
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