On Teaching and Patience

I’ve just finished teaching two back-to-back web development summer camps for high school students at the Flatiron School, and was recently hired as a full-time instructor for the upcoming Flatiron after-school coding program. I’m incredibly excited to be back in the classroom, working with great students, a strong team, and interesting content. As such, I’m going to pivot here for a while and post insights, best practices, and thoughts on teaching kids to code.

Today I’d like to talk about teaching – and practicing – patience. It’s one of those intangible soft-skills that you’re automatically supposed to have as a teacher. We preach the virtues of patience in class on a daily basis. We are supposed to be able to sit with a student who ‘isn’t getting it’ for as long as it takes, until a concept clicks and suddenly everything is clear. Teachers are the epitome of patience, right?

Unfortunately, finding patience can be a struggle for me. After teaching a concept multiple times and then sitting with a student who still doesn’t understand, I feel myself tense up and frustration rears its head. Why doesn’t this student get it? However, when I pause and examine this frustration a little more, I realize that it is directed towards myself, and not the student. If the student isn’t getting it, it’s my fault for not teaching well enough, or for not planning for every type of learning situation. And I’ll spiral down from frustration into despair: “I guess I’m just a terrible teacher. I’m not doing this right.”, etc.

But then I remember my own experience learning to code, and how difficult it was knowing that there was something there that I had to understand but unable to get the fog around the concept to clear. I had excellent teachers, but sometimes things took a while to sink in. And I realize that even if you have the best teacher in the world, some things just take time. You time need to digest. Concepts don’t always come right away. You could have the most talented piano teacher alive sitting next to you teaching you a new song, but you’re not going to be able to play that song right away. Practice, review, and drilling are key to learning.

Which makes me feel better about my teaching, and reminds me that I need not only be patient with my students, but also with myself. Like any endeavour, I’m not going to be a great coding instructor on day one. My lessons aren’t going to be perfect. There will be better ways to teach concepts that I’ll discover as I move forward. The key point is that I’m doing, and in doing I’ll learn what works and what doesn’t. And that, I hope, will make me a better teacher…