Are there some students who can’t learn how to code? Teachers must always answer “No!”

The below-linked article does a good job of considering the argument about whether everyone can learn to program, and comes to the same conclusion that I do — a CS teacher must always believe that everyone can learn to program.

Indeed, one can find a good number of opinionators weighing in on the subject. In “Separating Programming Sheep from Non-Programming Goats,” Stack Exchange co-founder Jeff Atwood cites Bornat’s initial paper and concludes, “the act of programming seems literally unteachable to a sizable subset of incoming computer science students.” Linux creator Linus Torvalds has been quoted as saying, “I actually don’t believe that everybody should necessarily try to learn to code” — although, he does propose that people be exposed to it to see if they have “the aptitude.” Clayton Lewis of the University of Colorado at Boulder conducted a survey in which 77% of responding computer science faculty strongly disagreed with the statement “Nearly everyone is capable of succeeding in the computer science curriculum if they work at it.” As a “bright-eyed beginner” (with a scant 15 years of introductory programming teaching under my belt), it’s hard for me to accept the assertion that there are “some who can’t.” Such reasoning smacks of elitism and prejudice, even if such attitudes aren’t expressed consciously.

Of course, I’ll be the first to admit that my own opinion rests heavily on my own preconceptions: I’ve always had that “Montessori feeling” — every interested student should be given a chance to try, and sometimes fail, in a supportive environment.So, rather than give up on some, shouldn’t educators themselves keep trying? The inverse to the question “are there some students who can’t learn?” is this question, “are there some students whom our (current) teaching methods can’t reach?” The first question by itself implies a “yes,” and thus closes a door on some students. The second question opens up a world of inquiry: if basic coding concepts are truly so simple (as they truly are once the abstraction is understood), what do we need to do to bring the hard cases home?

Source: Are there some students who can’t learn how to code? – O’Reilly Radar