Skill, Baby, Skill!

Building a team, cook time: 3–11 minutes

Anyone can learn to code. No really, anyone. Since the pandemic started and New York City schools closed in March, I’ve been spending many of my lunch hours teaching 4th graders to program games and web apps, both in text-based languages like JS and Ruby using my own projects to explain core concepts, and in visual programming languages like Blockly, through educational sites offering courses specifically designed for young learners. The kids understand the technical content just fine, even fairly complex issues like inheritance or state, they ask great questions, and have built fun little projects together. Some of them even have their own blogs and YouTube channels to showcase their work. We’ve never run into an issue with the tech.

Hard skills are easy.

We can not, however, get through a single lesson without running up against the limitations of the soft skills children have acquired by age 10. Poor communication skills, refusal to work together with a partner, unmitigated mood swings, horrible time management, low frustration threshold, the attention span of a hamster, and no strategic or organizational skill whatsoever. None.

Soft skills are hard.