TITLE: Are We Curious Enough About Our Students?
AUTHOR: Eugene Wallingford
DATE: March 17, 2019 10:59 AM
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 I ran across
<A HREF="https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2012/04/yahoos-doug-crockford-on-javascript/">
   an old interview with Douglas Crockford</A>
 recently.  When asked what traits were common to the weak
 programmers he'd seen over his career, Crockford said:

<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
 That's an easy one: lack of curiosity.  They were so satisfied
 with the work that they were doing was good enough (without an
 understanding of what 'good' was) that they didn't push
 themselves.
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>

 I notice a lack of curiosity in many CS students, too.  It's
 even easier for beginners than professional programmers to be
 satisfied with meeting the minimal requirements of a project --
 "I got the right answers!" or, much worse, "It compiles!" -- and
 not realize that good code can be more.  Part of our goal as
 teachers is to help students develop higher standards and more
 refined taste while they are in school.

 There's another sense, though, in which holding students' lack
 of curiosity against them is a dangerous trap for professors.
 In moments of weakness, I occasionally look at my students and
 think, "Why doesn't this excite them more?  Why don't they want
 to write code for fun?"  I've come to realize over the years
 that our school system doesn't always do much to help students
 cultivate their curiosity.  But with a little patience and a
 little conversation, I often find that my students <EM>are</EM>
 curious -- just not always about the things that intrigue me.

 This shouldn't be a surprise.  Even at the beginning of my
 career as a prof, I was a different sort of person than most of
 my students.  Now that I'm a few years older, it's almost certain
 that I will not be in close connection with my students and what
 interests them most.  Why would they necessarily care about the
 things I care about?

 Bridging this gap takes time and energy.  I have to work to build
 relationships both with individuals and with the group of
 students taking my course each semester.  This work requires
 patience, which I've learned to appreciate more and more as I've
 taught.  We don't always have the time we need in one semester,
 but that's okay.  One of the advantages of teaching at a smaller
 school is time: I can get to know students over several semesters
 and multiple courses.  We have a chance to build relationships
 that enrich the students' learning experience -- and my
 experience as a teacher.

 Trying to connect with the curiosity of many different students
 creates logistical challenges when designing courses, examples,
 and assignments, of course.  I'm often drawn back to Alan Kay's
 paradigm, Frank Oppenheimer's Exploratorium, which Kay discussed
 in
<A HREF="http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog/archives/monthly/2004-11.html#e2004-11-06T21_03_42.htm">
   his Turing Award lecture</A>.
 The internet is, in many ways, a programmer's exploratorium, but
 it's so big, so disorganized, and of such varying levels of
 quality...  Can we create collections of demos and problems that
 will contain something to connect with just about every student?
 Many of my posts on this blog, especially in the early years,
 grappled with this idea.  (Here are two that specifically mention
 the Exploratorium:
<A HREF="http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog/archives/monthly/2005-03.html#e2005-03-14T14_47_54.htm">
   Problems Are The Thing</A>
 and
<A HREF="http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog/archives/monthly/2007-07.html#e2007-07-17T20_17_04.htm">
   Mathematics, Problems, and Teaching</A>.)

 Sometimes I think the real question isn't: "Why aren't students
 more curious?"  It is: "Are we instructors curious enough about
 our students?"
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