TITLE: To Teach is to Counsel Possibility and Patience
AUTHOR: Eugene Wallingford
DATE: January 22, 2017  9:26 AM
DESC: 
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BODY:
As I settle into a new semester of teaching students functional
programming and programming languages, I find myself again in
the role of grader of, and commenter, on code.  This passage
from Tobias Wolff in
<A HREF="https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/5391/tobias-wolff-the-art-of-fiction-no-183-tobias-wolff">
   Paris Review interview</A>
serves as a guide for me:

<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
 Now, did [Pound] teach Eliot to write?  No.  But he did help
 him see that there were more notes to be played he was playing.
 That is the kind of thing I hope to do.  And to counsel patience
 -- the beauty of patience, which is not a virtue of the young.
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>

Students often think that learning to program is all about the
correctness of their code.  Correctness matters, but there's a
lot more.  Knowing what is possible and learning to be patient
as they learn often matter more than mere correctness.  For
some students, it seems, those lessons must begin before more
technical habits can take hold.
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