Teaching Computer Programming to Underserved Kids

Not sure if it is by design, but their website starts echoing some underscore.js tidbits if you start hammering on the keyboard: <a href="http://scriptednyc.org/" rel="nofollow">http://scriptednyc.org/</a><p>Word.

Related: Black Girls Code <a href="http://www.blackgirlscode.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.blackgirlscode.com/</a>

Neat! I donated.<p>This semester I've been volunteering to teach middle-school students how to "program a game!" with the very wonderful Citizen Schools program[1]. We've been developing a curriculum that takes elements from the Bootstrap curriculum[2], using the Khan Academy CS environment[3]. (Yes, we've been following the back-and-forth with Bret Victor carefully.)<p>It's been challenging, but very rewarding, and I hope other engineers take seriously their obligation to apply some of their good fortune and education for the benefit of others.<p>[1] <a href="http://www.citizenschools.org/" rel="nofollow">http://www.citizenschools.org/</a><p>[2] <a href="http://www.bootstrapworld.org/" rel="nofollow">http://www.bootstrapworld.org/</a><p>[3] <a href="http://www.khanacademy.org/cs" rel="nofollow">http://www.khanacademy.org/cs</a>

I misread the title as teaching CS to "Undeserving Kids." I thought, that's a little strange, but I wanna see how these little shits are getting some CS knowledge. But, the real idea is a good one.

One thing that does concern me about these types of programs is trying to teach kids who are too young, inadvertently causing them to conclude "programming is too hard" and give up. I consider myself of average intelligence and I struggled with programming in high school. It was only because of my obstinate nature and love of computers in general that I kept pursuing it in college.

I've been working with a group of volunteers from Freshbooks to teach to middle-school kids at the Yonge Street Mission here in Toronto. We're into our second class now - we've made some real life games to introduce concepts and have moved into using MIT's Scratch.<p>I've been thinking a lot about where to go next - great to hear about extra resources and that other people are doing similar stuff!

Anything like this in SF/Bay? I feel like there should be...

anything like this in London or Belfast?