Code for the Next Generation (English Version)

English Version

Where It Started

In the summer of 2025, I opened a class teaching Python to kids younger than me. It ran from August to October as an open course on Khan Academy. I took on all three jobs: writing the curriculum, designing the course, and teaching it. Thirty students, from primary through secondary school.

I assumed the hard part would be preparing the material. The first session told me I was wrong.

Teaching Is Harder Than Learning

I built my first lesson the way I had been taught it: full of terminology, tightly logical. Not one of them could follow. I realized that knowing something and being able to explain it to a ten-year-old are two completely different skills.

So I rewrote it from scratch. I cut the big words and replaced them with things they could picture: a variable is like a labeled box, a loop is like repeating the rules of a game. This time the class worked. And I learned something I still think about: I only really understand a thing once I can teach it to someone else.

Two Things in One Classroom

I taught entirely in English. That was deliberate. Sooner or later these kids will run into English when they study programming seriously, so I wanted them getting used to it early, in a setting where they actually had a reason to.

Parents noticed. A few messaged me to say their child had started opening the laptop at home just to try things out. To me that meant more than any test score: they weren't learning because they had to, but because they found it fun.

What Came of It

After three months, all thirty could write a few simple programs and understood the basics of Python. I won't claim I set anyone on a career path. But I remember one kid's face when his first program ran correctly, because it was exactly how I felt my own first time.

Khan Academy gave me a certificate when the course ended. I kept it, but what stayed with me longer was a new way of seeing my own learning.