Supercharge Your Middle School CS Classroom with Bob Irving

In this interview with Bob Irving, we discuss Bob’s book (Hard Fun: Supercharge your middle school computer science classroom with project-based, hands-on, just-in-time learning!), learning CS through Minecraft, the impact of COVID on Bob’s teaching, the importance of interest-driven learning, the future of CS education, and much more.

Welcome back to another episode of the
csk8 podcast my name is jared o'leary
each week of this podcast is either an
interview with a guest or multiple
guests or a solo episode where i unpack
some scholarship in relation to computer
science education in this week's
particular episode i'm interviewing a
repeat guest bob irving in this new
interview with bob we discuss bob's book
which is titled hard fun supercharger
middle school computer science classroom
with project-based hands-on just-in-time
learning we discuss learning computer
science through minecraft the impact of
covit on bob's teaching the importance
of interest-driven learning the future
of computer science education and so
much more as always you can find show
notes at jared o'leary.com or by
clicking the link in the app that you're
listening to this on for example you can
find some of the podcasts that were
mentioned like bob's previous interview
and then the interview with laura
decenza linked to in the show notes
you'll also find hundreds if not
thousands of free computer science
education resources on my website as
well as on the website for the nonprofit
that i work for boot up pd which powers
this podcast and if you're on my website
you'll also find a bunch of gaming and
drumming content because i stream and
create content in those areas too in my
leisure so if those interests you check
it out but with all that being said we
will now begin with an introduction by
bob okay hi everybody my name is bob
irving and i teach middle school
computer science and i teach in an
independent school in charleston south
carolina called the porter goud school
and i've been there this is my eighth
year and i did it for about 11 years
before that in another independent
school
and this is believe it or not my last
year full-time in-person teaching so
i'll be moving on to whatever the next
phase is after this
i did finally finally after two years of
teaching remotely and a pandemic and
everything else that happened i finally
finished my book which has come out and
i was on the show jared had me very
graciously a couple of years ago and he
said well when you get your book out you
know let me know we'll talk about it so
it's out if this were on video you could
see me holding it up to the camera
i look at it it's only really about 61
pages it's surprising that it took me
all that time to finish it but anyway i
wanted to get it out and i wanted to
kind of put down in writing what it is
that i do every day how my classes work
why i do what i do and just kind of
focus on some of the highlights and the
platforms that i use so it's eminently
practical i mean it's made for people in
this space whether you know you run a
homeschool or you're a computer science
middle school teacher or you run a camp
or anywhere in that space you're trying
to help kids to code and i'm not saying
this is the only way to do anything but
i do believe that it's practical enough
that anybody reading this could pick up
something that they could use tomorrow
in their class or their camp and so
that's kind of what i put down so it's
called hard fun and the subtitle is
supercharged your middle school computer
science classroom with project based
hands-on just-in-time learning that's a
mouthful but anyway so if you know any
of the the backstory and the people in
this field and you know hard fun is
something that i stole from seymour
papert one of my heroes who i consider
kind of the godfather of kids in coding
even back in the 70s at mit somebody
that worked with him said he didn't
actually come up with that it was one of
his students
who did that which i thought now that's
interesting because i guess seymour had
asked him you know is this fun and one
of the students said it's hard fun and i
thought
that nails that's become my mantra every
quarter i have my kids quarterly day one
we have the intro to the class and how
things run and i always promised them i
said this is going to be hard fun and i
say it's fun because you'll be doing
cool engaging projects that you love and
you're going to really want to do them
and it's hard because it's not always
easy to get things working the way you
want them to work but i can guarantee
you're going to have that combination of
both of them i guess in a word that's
what it's about so the book is available
on amazon print
e-book and also you can read it for free
if you have kindle unlimited i just
wrote about what i do and people ask me
was it hard to write the book and i
always say no because it just kind of
wrote itself honestly because it's just
what i do every day in my class it's how
my classes run what i think what the
kids say you know what i'm looking for
when i choose platforms how i present
material what i expect how i assess
things i didn't have to do any research
at all which is kind of nice i just
talked about how it works and tried to
organize it in a fashion that would be
accessible to other people so it's kind
of exciting to finally
push it over the finish line and have it
out there and yeah so hard fun by bob
irving and it really is even though that
the subtitle is a mouthful that
supercharging your middle school
computer science classroom with project
based hands-on just-in-time learning i
really think that exactly encapsulates
what the book is about and what are the
titles of each of the chapters well i've
kind of broken it down i didn't make the
titles quite as long so i you know i
have intro and pedagogy and then i've
just done it kind of mostly by the
platforms that i use
just the back story i teach grades five
through eight that's what our middle
school is at our school and every
student in middle school must take
computer science for one quarter which
means
that you get the entire range of student
interest and ability i think that's
really a good thing because everybody
gets exposed to it but it also means you
know you have to pitch it a little bit
differently than you might if it were an
elective
because if you do an elective you have
you know the nerd herd is always going
to sign up for everything and then
you're going to go in a different
direction but you know i have kids that
don't know how to turn a computer on an
actual desktop computer they don't know
how to turn it off they don't know how
to log in they don't know how to use a
keyboard and a mouse things like that i
mean it's they're tablet kits or phone
kits so it's kind of new to them so
anyway also i have my intro and
pedagogies chapter one then i have a
chapter on scratch one on robotics one
on the raspberry pi one on physical
computing minecraft
sonic pi codu processing from blocks to
text how do you make that shift what i
call my thon which is
minecraft and python
and then the last one is called voice
and choice which kind of wraps up the
approach which is i am a big believer in
giving students as much voice and choice
in
what they do as possible so those are
the chapter headings not real exciting
but that's what they are let's dive deep
into like a chapter if you wouldn't mind
to give like a sense of what someone
might expect to learn from a particular
topic i'll talk about minecraft that's
kind of my current fave so i talk a
little bit about how i got introduced to
minecraft and you know it's such an
institution now i started back in
two years i think after it started and i
kept hearing my students talk about this
game you know this minecraft minecraft
minecraft all the time this weird
language about finding diamonds and you
know i'd say what's this minecraft thing
you know they were all excited i mean
the weird thing that i noticed when i
asked a question like what's this
minecraft thing is you to be boys girls
you know gender didn't matter color
didn't matter you know you could have
kids who are like the super nerdy types
versus the super you know athletic types
everybody and i thought i owe it to
myself to figure out what is this
minecraft thing you know i talk about
downloading it and looking at it and
thinking what the heck is going on here
we are in a 21st century with these
eight big blocky graphics
right
i couldn't i
didn't get it i thought you know you've
got 3d photo realistic games available
and these kids are going crazy over this
block you know kind of ugly
game so i thought that's really
something
what is going on here and so you know i
just kind of detailed my
journey and trying to learn more about
it so i
enlisted the help of some experts namely
you know my students you know and i said
you know help me with this you know walk
me through it and i had kids volunteer
to stay after school to help mr irving
you know navigate his way around you
know and it was touching in a way
because there were kids that you know
they weren't always at the top of the
class academically but boy they knew
their way around minecraft and the other
cool thing that i found was that they
were so willing to help and so patient
with me
because i you know i wasn't getting it
you know i mean until you learn you know
wasd and the mouse and you know jumping
and crouching and breaking and all you
know all that kind of stuff it's a
little obtuse yep and there were super
no no no it's not like that you know
[Laughter]
and they could have been a lot meaner
than they were but they're very patient
with me and helping with it but anyway
so then i thought what i'm going to do
is i'm going to have a minecraft club so
i detail all this in the chapter and so
i asked for volunteers to beta test this
so i got this edition some of the your
listeners will remember
minecraft.edu which was a kind of a mod
of java based minecraft back in the day
that they made for schools and for
teachers and so i got minecraft.edu and
got it installed on our school server
and i bought some licenses and i said i
just need you know a few beta testers to
see if this is really going to work and
you know instantly i you know 15 or 20
kids
volunteer and i said well now the tricky
part is you're going to miss recess
because that's the only time in the day
when we can do it so after lunch i got
each other to get into the room
yeah happily giving up recess yeah and
playing i had this aha moment i thought
if i can't figure out a way to harness
this
energy and enthusiasm in my classes and
i need to have my teaching license
revoked because
i had never
seen anything like this
there's something magical i i don't know
how to explain it you know so as a
computer science teacher i started
thinking oh so okay how can we do coding
in minecraft and so the chapter is kind
of my
how that worked and all the different
things that i went through to kind of
figure out how to use this well you know
here it is whatever almost 10 years
later still using it minecraft has
evolved minecraft.edu is no more it got
bought by microsoft and i remember the
day i saw that headline and i really
thought my heart was going to stop you
know it says you know microsoft buys
minecraft for 2.5 billion or whatever it
was but the thing that got my attention
was microsoft bought it and back in that
day that was like hearing you know like
the death star had just you know hovered
over your planet you know it was this is
that's
i think microsoft actually now is a very
forward-looking company yeah and really
with it and i think this
proves it but
at the time i thought oh
god they're going to suck all the life
out of it they're going to try to
monetize it they're going to make it you
know
it's going to destroy this indie game
you know that we've all come to know and
love and fortunately it turns out that's
not the case so i had some good
discussions at conferences with some of
the microsoft people and they told me
they were under strict instructions they
said do not mess with the dna of
minecraft and they were all given you
know
i can't remember what the book was it
might have been notch's book or somebody
about the beginnings of minecraft and
what it was and they were told don't
fool with that because that's the black
box we know that that is working all the
time so that made me feel a little bit
better and i think it has borne out to
me anyway that now with education
edition they've got a good plan you know
so i've been able to use education
addition to my classes ever since and so
i talk a lot about you know how we do
that they incorporated coding with their
make code environment
so you get some block based coding with
the agent there's this little robot dude
you know you can code him to move around
and build and all kinds of cool stuff
like that
it's very computer sciencey they
actually added python which i was really
excited about because at first i only
offered javascript and i thought i
actually you know
i said to anybody who was listening at
microsoft they said please not
javascript is the first text-based
language i get that it's important and
it's everywhere but
please and we do python yeah i don't
think it was because i was asking but
you know
i think in the last two years they did
incorporate python which i was very
happy to see yeah so i just talked about
that and the other thing that i touch on
briefly here in the chapter is the whole
thing of command block it's text-based
code
in the 3d world of minecraft and to me
that's the coolness which is
you know you can move around
your build and look at it from every
angle you can see it you're inhabiting
the three-dimensional world where your
code is executing and if you think about
that that is off the charts awesome you
know because everything else you know
you're on a 2d screen and you see
something happen after you run you know
your code and you know that's pretty
satisfying there's no question but if
you actually inhabit the same world and
you're you as a player and the coder are
interacting with the code it really is
supremely magical i do a lot and i hope
to do a lot more with command blocks so
for instance i do a mini game in sixth
grade and i say you can build your own
minigame at least five different command
blocks i give them the beginner commands
like teleport and give and summon and
stuff like that and so that unleashes
their creativity in an environment that
most of them are familiar with not
everybody has played minecraft but i
always ask them like have you been like
living under a rock or something how did
you get to be in sixth grade and not
have played minecraft before yeah i'm
just joking with them but i mean you
know you do wonder
they were doing other stuff that's fine
you know but but anyway
it's the combination to me and i guess
this in a way it's a good chapter to
start with because it really
encapsulates a lot of my approach
and my pedagogy which is you know big
projects
hands-on just in time learning which
means i don't do a lot of prep to say
okay now today class we're going to talk
about you know variables or we're going
to talk about this you know middle
schoolers could they really don't want
to hear me talk
i've just had to accept that
i think i'm a really interesting person
but they don't
they could care less
and what they want to do but they know i
mean they're chomping at the bit i have
a saying in my class it's a it's an
acronym which is pronounced hocaf
h-o-k-e-f which stands for hands-off
keyboard eyes front and one of my middle
school students years ago said you
should use something like this and so
i've incorporated that but it's really
hard to get them to get their hands off
the keyboard and their eyes front when
minecraft is right in front of them and
i know i can't compete so i do as little
prep work as possible i say
here's what you're going to do here are
some suggestions for the kind of mini
games you can build you could do a
parkour or a maze or you know an escape
room or whatever and here's how you're
going to be graded you need to know
these
command
blocks and how to use them now
i support that and this is where the
just-in-time learning comes in i have a
youtube channel crouching python and
i've made videos for all the places
where i know my kids get stuck so i say
oh you can go you want to learn how to
do the fill command i've got a really
good video on that so go to youtube look
me up watch the video the other thing
i've learned is that when i started
doing the videos i was under the
assumption that they would be happy to
do that but i'm finding that even at
five minutes my videos are probably too
long
so i need to go more like a tick tock
length you know or
youtube shorts you know 35 seconds or
whatever but
that's why i can do this just in time
learning because i have support
materials there and when they want to
know how do you do this then i have some
material to point them to i mean there's
different ways to approach it i could
front load it and i can say now here's
how you do this command a fill command a
give command a summon command a teleport
command and an effect command and i can
have them watch me demonstrate it right
but they don't really
want to do that i don't blame them
because it's abstract at that point it
has no context for what they're trying
to do whereas if i say you know when
it's time here's a resource that's the
teachable moment that's when they want
to know how do you do this and they're
begging me i mean how many classes do
you get to teach where your kids are
begging you to tell you something that
you want them to know right i think you
know i mean we started with minecraft
but that really encapsulates in a lot of
ways my entire teaching philosophy i
appreciate that it's interesting hearing
you reflect on like making a short
version of your videos so i've been
doing a lot of streaming of myself
playing video games and then also myself
like how i practice the drums and i've
been
in the mornings when i work out i will
review the videos and just like press m
to like add a marker and premiere and
then i'll go back and i'll turn those
into a short clip some of the clips that
i end up making they have to be under a
minute to be a youtube short or to go on
instagram or tic tocs now expanded it
but that one minute like limit that you
have it really makes you like figure out
what is the most important thing like so
far the longest video that i've
compressed into a minute was a 20 minute
segment of myself playing elden ring and
i had to make it into a one minute like
little funny here's myself like doing
something in the game and to think about
like whether it's the entertainment kind
of stuff like with video games or the
instructional stuff that i'm doing with
the drumming like to
condense something into such a short
excerpt is a really good process at
least i feel like it's been fun to learn
how to do those kind of edits well i
guess that's my next challenge is to do
that you know as a teacher i like to say
now here's why this is how it works this
is why you need to know you know
because that's the way my mind works you
know like a lot of people can tell me
well you just do this and my next
question always is yeah but why like why
does that work like that because i want
to know because that's the way my brain
works is oh well so if that works like
that oh i get it now then i can expand
it to something else and i think that is
valuable at times there's no question
that that's that has value but at
certain times for certain people it's
good but you know probably not always
i find what most of my students want to
know is yeah but how do you do it yep
tell me you know like in 15 seconds how
do you do this
actually i've learned yeah i can and
they're like okay good and then just go
on
they've learned what they needed to know
the other thing that i do in my classes
and if you were to come to my class and
see it in action i think that it looks
chaotic
no matter what grade
everybody's working on something
different in that you know even if
they're let's say seventh grade would do
scratch games well everybody's got their
own game right and they're all at
different
necessarily in different spots in their
game and what they're doing yep you know
so how as a teacher do you manage you
know well it's mbwa you know managed by
walking around i mean so i got my room
set up now so that all of the desks are
on the outside of the room facing the
outside walls yep and i wander around in
the middle to see what i can help people
with and then the other cool thing is
that so somebody figures out how to do
something like somebody's got the fill
command down i know they've got it
they've demonstrated it i go to the next
person over and they say how do you do a
fill command and i say well you need to
ask you know emily because she's just
figured it out and then i can walk on to
the next person and then emily becomes
the expert and maybe emily came in not
feeling like she knew anything about
coding and she wasn't good at it and
she's not a minecrafter you know not a
game or blah blah blah but also you know
she's the expert on the film command you
know that can kind of proliferate
throughout the class so you don't have
to be
the expert but you do have to know
you can't just let kids go and just
figure it out i'm not a believer in that
but i do think that you know i had this
quotation from seymour paper on my board
once that said something like you know
the job of a teacher is not to instill
knowledge but to create an atmosphere
where learning is maximized something
like that i'm sure i'm not getting it
right because i'm just pulling off the
top of my head here but i believe that
and in my classrooms i've worked very
hard to create that atmosphere where
learning is maximized so i'm not the
expert even though i probably do know
the answers to all of them and sometimes
i'll tell them and sometimes i won't
which is you know that's okay too it
depends yeah to be able to engage in
like that productive struggle i think
can be very beneficial for students to
figure out and think through things and
whatnot i am curious like how has your
understanding or approach
in the classroom change cause like when
we last spoke it was like in 2019 and
that just seems like forever ago
we're recording this in 2022 and even
though it's only a couple years ago like
so much has changed like what has been
reinforced for you or like what has
shifted in your understandings over the
last couple of years those are really
good questions and it does seem like
that was in another age doesn't it
oh my god so in the meantime what
happened i taught a year remotely which
a lot of people did my school i mean
because i'm in a high risk category my
school enabled they got an in-class
monitor so my classes were still meeting
in person but i
zoomed in every day for a year so that
meant a couple of things one thing was
it meant that i couldn't as easily
manage by walking around although you
know you've got breakout rooms and zoom
and i use those a lot but the other
thing was that i couldn't use because
you probably remember at the height of
the pandemic we didn't know what the
transmission mode was and so all of my
windows computers were packed away and
my students they have ipads their own
individual ipads and i had to revamp my
entire curriculum
my curriculum was you know based on my
computers yep so that meant okay
robotics with people out of their seats
and bumping into each other and handling
you know lego pieces that was out
raspberry pies
no yep micro bits no
and even the computers no it forced me
to think okay now what are the big
things that i want them to know
and how can i do that on these little
devices with the ipad
and so i revamped my entire curriculum
from fifth or eighth grade so that was
one thing you know i'd be basically
either an app or web-based and it had to
work well on ipad not everything
you know works well web-based on ipads
that you might think you know so so the
one thing i did was it made me stop and
think so what are the big ones you know
that i want to make sure i divided
everything i did into four basic
categories i said i've got game design
robotics physical computing which would
be like you know raspberry pi's
microbits and creative computing which
would be something like processing
art and code or music and code like with
sonic pi so i said i want to make sure
that in pretty much every year or every
other year i'm going to hit all of those
things and then i thought well now what
can i do that's going to be web-based
that they can do on their ipads so for
instance i went to virtual robotics from
vex which is great i was super impressed
with that was it as good as them holding
the robots in their physical hands and
building them and having them
on the floor no i don't think so but you
know you still have a lot of the same
functionality and you know it's the same
kind of thing so that was one huge
change the other change that happened
since then
and during then and i can't remember
where i read it but somebody said this
generation you know to step back from
our curriculum and all of that this
generation is experiencing something on
a global scale that none of us has ever
experienced a global health crisis a
pandemic with millions of people dying
and living with the fear and uncertainty
of how does this work and you know what
is my future going to be and
you know all of that i mean and i've
been around a long time i have nothing
in my history to compare with that
nothing the most traumatic thing you
know this is really going to date me but
i you know i remember the cuban missile
crisis and being on the playground and
hearing planes go overhead and thinking
oh my god this is it you know but that
was just like one day these kids have
lived with this for years
now so it seems to me as a teacher i
don't think we can just go back to
business as usual and i think there's
been a
huge push from you know whatever all of
the invested parties not all of them but
most of them you know to get back to
normal well first of all i'm not
convinced that whatever was normal
before was optimum right i'm definitely
not convinced about that and secondly i
don't think we can just act like nothing
ever happened right so i suppose now to
bring this back to my classes how that
changed i think i'm doing more stuff
that i know is immediately engaging and
fun to use the f word with kids because
i
really think i don't know if there's
anything to back me up on this but you
know social emotional learning or
something like that these kids have
really been through more than we have as
adults at a young age and that has an
impact and we won't know probably for
years what that impact is and it will be
but there's no question it's done that
now i'm in the independent school world
so
our big word is rigor you know
everything's got to be rigorous which
you know who
who even knows what that means but
anyway
i don't think that in my expectations
for what students can do i'm any less
rigorous than i was but i'm more
inclined and i've always been inclined
to do stuff that i think is fun and
engaging i'm more inclined to do stuff
that's even more fun and more engaging
because i don't know so
i'm doing more minecraft than i did
before i'm not even sure i can say why
but you know there is something about
that game that is it's magical it's so
engaging and it engages their creative
selves and their thinking selves and
their adventurous selves and everything
in a way that i just don't see in other
places
and again if i can harness that whatever
that is and use it in my classes then
i'm definitely going to do that i think
that's one thing that i've noted is that
and maybe it's just a nod to the kids
and saying look i know you it's been
rough i can't even imagine you know so
we're going to do some really fun stuff
now i'm still going to sneak in
what i call stealth learning you're
going to be learning stuff and you're
still going to get assessed you know
here's the rubric but along the way you
know somebody once
i was on some zoom chat where somebody
said never waste a crisis and i feel
like we had a crisis i think in
education we had a moment where
everything was up for grabs i feel like
we kind of wasted that crisis
because i think the you know everybody
was so eager to get back to normal and i
understand that because everything was
upended but we could have had a new
normal come out of this it could have
made us rethink what are we doing and
why are we doing it and i think one of
the things you and i talked a little bit
about this is this whole concept of
learning loss
that you hear people talking about yeah
i'm sorry but i just to me i think these
kids have had learning leaps because
they have learned
more about life than i did way more than
i ever did at that age you know so
maybe they're a little bit behind on
their you know whatever i think yeah it
is important they get their math skills
and their reading skills and everything
else up to where it should be but let's
not dismiss what they've been through
and talk like oh and now we have to
really ratchet it up to get them caught
up i think that's a recipe for disaster
but what do you think oh yeah i
definitely agree like before we even
started recording we were talking about
like the differences between a compound
and complex sentence and i was like i
don't even know what that is like i've
written like a dozen publications
received some awards even for some of
them and like i don't even know what a
compound or complex sentence is like is
that really the most important thing
that we need to focus on or perhaps like
to vamp off of what you're saying maybe
we should focus on being able to express
yourself through a medium that just
happens to be writing through text and
like then use that as a springboard for
learning so you're learning more about
yourself and your own interests as
opposed to focusing on like menial
little benchmarks that are assessed and
whatnot yeah i think i would agree with
that so the long answer to a short
question you know i have a lot more i
don't know what it is sympathy or
whatever for kids that have had to deal
with us and i mean i think they've been
real champs all the ones that i know
that i work with i'm just astounded now
i think clearly you know there's some
things that happen that they're going to
need help with later on i think i mean i
don't know i mean i don't know what it's
like to be 11 years old and have to live
through something like that and think
about that maybe you have you know
relatives or loved ones who lost their
lives or you're worried about them
getting sick that's going to do a number
on you and you're going to have to
somehow you know i'm not a psychologist
but you're going to have to work through
that make it part of your existence but
um let's not denigrate that so i mean i
yeah that's an answer to how the
pandemic changed me and my teaching that
would be one thing right there let's say
at the end of this recording like you
get a knock on your door and then you
open it up there's a little package from
amazon and you open it up and inside is
a magic wand and with this magic wand
you could reimagine education in any way
just at the flick of the wand like what
changes would you make with that oh my
god i mean i don't really feel qualified
to say what should happen in you know
every grade every subject every
discipline i can't say that but i'll
tell you what i would love to see is a
switch to more
learning by doing and doing things that
mean something to you in a lot of my
classes i kind of end off with a passion
project which you know i didn't invent
but i'd say you start with something
that you care about passion's a tough
term to use with middle schoolers
sometimes so i i use the word interest
you know something that you're really
interested in you know it doesn't matter
what it is it could be a video game it
could be soccer it could be you know
animal
safety you know healthy eating i don't
care it doesn't have to be even an issue
that you want to see change and start
from there and then let's say you pick
minecraft or you pick something else and
you're going to build something that's
going to reflect your interest and your
passion well why couldn't most education
be something like that where i create
stuff that means something to me it's
also abstract and i think after a while
you know the kids know how to game the
system you know if they're interested it
becomes about chasing the grades so they
can get it you know all of that you know
maybe i see it more in my school because
an independent school is very you know
focused on one particular approach and
one particular destination i would love
to see some of that i'd love to see us
do more as finland does i always think
no homework really
and you're still at the top of
standardized testing how does that work
you know but clearly they're doing
something you know i would love to see
that i'm one of those lifelong learners
that every school says their mission is
to create lifelong learners i've yet to
find a school that didn't say that that
was their mission to create lifelong
learners well i think that every school
that i've been associated with is
failing miserably because the joy of
learning which i think is a real thing
and i'm not saying it's all fun you know
it's hard fun
it's disappeared i mean i see it by the
time kids get into sixth grade you know
you just show up you either do or don't
do what's expected you know and you
endure the day and then you get out you
go to the stuff you want to do i mean so
it's kind of sad in a way so if i had a
magic wand i guess i would wave it so
that we got excited about the stuff that
we were learning and maybe it's because
we had a voice and choice in what we
learned i don't mean that if you really
don't you're not feeling like you want
to learn the multiplication tables that
you get to skip them you know or
anything like that i do think that there
has to be a way to individualize i guess
education more you've read it all you
know we're in the factory model the
industrial revolution model of school is
still very much in play right so if a
teacher's listening to this and they're
like yeah i totally agree love that
what's something that they could
actually do to try and enact those kind
of changes in their own classroom i'll
tell you what a lot of people and i've
heard this from you know people that i
work you know around they say and even
if they don't say it i know they're
thinking it well it's easy for you to
have fun engaging projects because you
teach computers
and kids love computers and they're all
good at them
and of course my first thought is a
they're not all good at computers
if you've been in my classroom you'd
know that b they don't all love
computers and c before i taught computer
science i taught english and history so
i know for a fact that in other
disciplines and subjects you can do an
approach like this now i'm not saying
everything can be like that but what i
would say is start small
you know do something one lesson one you
know one
a month one a week whatever and just try
it you know learn what you can about it
and open it up and then
try it and you know you'll fail because
we all fail the first time we do
anything then kind of reassess you know
what worked what didn't work and that
really that's how i came up with this
program that i'm currently using i mean
there's a lot of fails along the way
when i thought something was this is
going to be
killer and it
crashed and burned on the runway you
know or the opposite so i would say
start small there's a lot of resources
out there to learn about things like
project-based learning or you know call
it what you will if it works for a
lesson try a unit okay this three-week
unit where we're going to be studying
whatever we're going to do it like this
so you don't change your expectations
you don't change your outcomes that you
want but you're going to change your
methodology for how you're going to try
to get there and that means
probably you're going to have to assess
it differently because you know we're
used to the you know we teach the way
that we were taught most of us right i
mean a lot of people say i could never
do that i mean that'd be impossible in
my you know teaching whatever i teach or
what great well it might be impossible
to do the whole thing i mean my entire
curriculum is like this that's the way i
do it but i'm not afraid if somebody
needs direct instruction or it's clear
that whatever i'm doing isn't working
and the whole class needs direct
instruction i'll stop and do it i mean
i'm not married to any particular
pedagogy to the exclusion of everything
else i just know that this way works the
best for everybody almost all the time
but you know i'll do that so you know i
think just be brave enough to try it so
i went back to school to learn coding
like i taught english and history for
the first part of my career i went back
to school and the school that i went to
is a 10 month intense you had to be a
college graduate to get in and they were
upskilling us
for and this will date this but this is
for the dot-com boom if you remember
back that far when everything was just i
mean and i've been a teacher and i was
in a boarding school i was kind of burnt
out from teaching frankly and i thought
well if i do this then i can shift over
to you know the tech field and i will be
making millions of dollars and you know
all of that by the time we graduated the
bloom was off the rose and the dot-com
bubble was bursting but the thing that i
took with me though besides the skills
of coding and databases and all that
kind of stuff was
the way they taught us in this
particular school i remember they got us
all in the room all of us grown-ups you
know the first day and they said that
everything that we teach you this is
what the guy in chart said everything we
teach you will be obsolete in three
years and i remember sitting there
thinking wow
we're spending a lot of
that money about 30 grand
for one year of learning obsolete
material
but he said you know in this field
things change all the time he said i'm
going to list the technologies that we
taught five years ago and he started
listing you know programming languages
and databases and all the stuff he said
are you familiar with them nobody heard
of them oh he said but what we're going
to teach you is we're going to teach you
how
to continually teach yourself so that no
matter what happens no matter how the
technology changes you will have learned
a way of learning that will stand you in
good stead because it's always going to
change that was one of the things that
attracted me to technology because i
thought english and hamlet had never
changed ever
as much as i love hamlet but you know
you didn't think oh how are we going to
do it next year when it's all different
you know it's it was never different it
was always the same you know you could
get deeper into it you know but that
wasn't like this we worked in teams
creating real world applications we did
have you know part of the day was direct
instruction where they quote unquote
taught us
things about you know programming
languages or databases and things like
that but then the rest of the day you're
working in your team building something
that had to use what you were you know
quote-unquote and inevitably and you
know how it is
you get to something that they didn't
cover and you have to figure out so how
do i do that though because they talked
about this but they didn't talk about
that and so we didn't have teachers the
way they called them facilitators that
should have been my first clue you know
so you would ask the facilitator they
would kind of go from team room to team
room and you'd say look hey we're stuck
with this thing here we can't make this
work the database isn't connecting or
you know something's wrong what do we do
and invariably the answer was hmm i
don't know what where do you think would
be a good place to go to try to get some
help for that so after
we kind of stopped asking because we
knew we were going to get that response
now they did say that's part of the plan
that's we're doing that on purpose and
they promised us look if you're at the
point where
everybody in the room you're either
going to kill each other or you know how
somebody's in tears call us we will hold
your hand through it you know but other
than that
look at your resources all your team
members all the materials you have the
internet you know other
you know and figure it out so i teach
the way i am taught so i brought that
kind of pedagogy with me into computer
science when i moved to computer science
now middle schoolers are different from
adults and that they have very little
patience and are more easily frustrated
so i don't like quite as just figure it
out and don't ask me any questions but i
do allow them to struggle you know and i
do provide
resources and they're surrounded i
always tell them that there's people all
around you that know how to do this ask
get out of your seat and say who knows
how to do a timer in scratch who knows
and somebody's going to raise their hand
saying i know okay go help them you know
and now you're the expert too so it
works like that so i kind of feel like
if teachers if they could have
professional development where they
would have to make stuff with minimal
instruction that meant something to them
you know and you give them a few tools
maybe a you know whatever you know a
programming language this that you know
whatever and say create something you
know i have a feeling that they'd be
much more inclined to try it in the
classroom they have to go through it you
have to struggle through it and see that
oh yeah that actually works i can do
this and then you have the confidence
you can help your students when they're
kind of stuck so you don't have to be
the you know the fount of all wisdom
yeah like that it was interesting
hearing you mention that part of the
reason why you went into cs was because
you were getting burned out in education
one of the questions that i've been
asking more frequently since we last did
an interview is like how do you stave
off the burnout that can come with
working in a very demanding field so i'm
curious for you what would be that
answer like what do you do to kind of
take care of yourself that's interesting
you know because i guess to go back to
what we were talking about before it's
not just our students who've gone
through this global pandemic and are you
know carrying the scars but those of us
who i think society realized are front
line workers now i mean a lot of people
and i'm sure you've talked to them
they're scarred they've been caught
between you know all these conflicting
demands and political and you know
whatever you know
expectations and health fears and all
that kind of stuff so i'll tell you one
thing that i don't think is really that
helpful is to provide wellness programs
at your school and i've seen a lot of
that we're just going to teach you to do
mindfulness and i'm a big believer in
meditation and mindfulness big believer
in it but i don't think that's the way
you handle people who are experiencing
this kind of burnout i really don't yeah
i don't know what the answer is but
again it's a systemic thing where
we have you know the factories already
set up we're trying to jam people
through this it's so inhumane in a way
the whole system is inhumane i mean
fortunately it's staffed with people
like you and me that have gone into
teaching we're not doing it to get rich
we're doing it because we love learning
and we love
we like kids and we want to make the
world a better place right that's really
tricky and especially in our field in
the cs field how are you going to
attract teachers when they're not going
to get two or three times what they
would get paid teaching plus have all of
these other you know duties and
responsibilities and expectations i
don't know i think it you know requires
systemic reform i don't know how that's
going to happen i'll be honest are there
any other
approaches or tools like meditation that
you use to
help yourself
yeah there is
music
now that's me that's my personal thing
but i always tell people i have a
musical alter ego his name is chicago
bob and he plays blues guitar you know
this is my
passion musically is learning about this
kind of music and learning to play it so
during the pandemic i actually set up a
weekly facebook live event
where i played music half an hour i
called it the southern comfort sessions
or you know
i said to make of it what you will but
it was a way for me to express that and
connect with people i mean it's a
personal note it was amazing for me
because i was able to keep in touch with
family and friends former students even
and you know friends that i hadn't seen
in decades you know
and we're able to connect through this
you know live music in the midst of this
craziness that we're all experiencing
and i you know i told somebody the other
day to me that's like oxygen can a
school facilitate it for their teachers
to follow passions didn't google used to
have their 25
you spent a quarter of your time just
following something that you're really
jazzed about now we're talking crazy i'm
sure but i mean if you really want to
see people make it and people are
leaving the profession in droves yeah
they are burning out there's actually a
podcast that i'll include a link to in
the show notes it's with laura desenza
and so she actually talks about how she
took that time that was modeled in
companies like google they called it the
genius hour where it was
time for you to explore whatever you
want in the classroom so people want to
hear more about that i'll include a link
to that in the show notes but it's a
brilliant idea let's make the learning
experience as humane as we possibly can
for all the participants i mean that's
the way i try to run my class so i list
little you know my classroom within the
context of my middle school within the
context of my school right you know i
don't have complete control i can't just
go and do whatever i want but i have
been given i've been very fortunate the
freedom to kind of structure it and run
it the way that i want to and it does
reflect my personality which you know
any pedagogy should but that's humane i
think by definition isn't it
one kid they said can we call you
chicago bob my answer is yeah if you see
me playing somewhere but here in the
classroom i'm mr irving but i mean i i
had one eighth grader last week say i
looked up some of your facebook stuff
the chicago bob stuff that was really
cool
uh-oh
i hope i didn't say anything
inappropriate but yeah you know if kids
can see you as an actual human being
yeah and you can relate to them that way
i don't know there's something magical
about that and i think the whole
system is not designed for that to
happen yeah in fact i think it's getting
less and less humane i mean you tell me
jared because i think you're more in
touch with us than i am but you know
when you have you know actual curriculum
that you have to follow day by day and
scripts you're supposed to read from and
things like that well you could just
clearly could get a robot to do that you
wouldn't need a human being to that's
where one of my former districts was
heading with their pe department they
would put on a recording of like the
instruction and then it was the pe
teacher's job to just walk around and
check on
posture and technique while doing the
movements but they were basically just
watching like i don't know recording of
zumba for example and so the students
would just follow along with that
there's like zero customization all 50
plus elementary schools were doing the
exact same thing on the exact same day
so it's just like where is the humanity
in that but your point about like being
human as an educator that is like i
would frequently talk with kids about oh
yeah what's your favorite anime oh well
here's mine or like oh yeah what video
games do you play oh here's what i play
and like recently even on social media i
started sharing hey i stream video games
hey i play drums a lot like and sharing
all the successes and failures with that
but yeah i hear you about the fear of
like students and like oh what did i say
which is like every time i stream i'm
like okay i need to make sure i'm family
friendly i'm not swearing when i'm on
there because like for all i know a
little like five-year-old might stumble
across my content i want to make sure
that it's appropriate for them well i
think that's so cool because i think
they know you're a human being and i
think they'll relate to you as a human
being and then in one sense you kind of
gain their trust i mean especially i
think in you know middle school the old
saying is that you teach students more
than you teach subjects i mean you do
teach subjects but you you know you have
to connect with these people as people
and earn the right to be heard and i
think you do that by respecting them as
unique individuals
it doesn't mean that anything goes it
doesn't mean that you just say yeah
whatever you know but it does mean that
you listen to them like what's your
favorite anime you know and i always
find students are like astonished they
say you have a youtube channel
yeah of course like who doesn't you know
make sure to like comment and subscribe
i always say that don't forget to like
share and subscribe
i don't know i remember as a kid
thinking
my teachers were like vampires you know
in the sense that
when they weren't in school they were
sleeping in a coffin somewhere you know
like they just this is the opposite they
were up in there in the daytime i
remember once seeing one of my teachers
at the grocery store you know i was in
the elementary school thinking what the
heck yeah you know what are you what
what are you doing here you know that's
what i thought you know it's like how
can you be shopping for groceries you're
like you're i had no sense of them as
human beings you know and i think it's
often the case you know i don't have a
magic wand and other people
who study this would be much better at
proposing
changes than i would be we're gonna have
a system let's at least make it a humane
system that you know respects our
individuality and our differences and
our beliefs and whatever you know and i
think if we can start there and build up
i think you get buy-in that's been my
experience anyway yeah you get buy-in
from students they'll do anything for
you i do want to say i met somebody who
was a new school principal and they said
they would no longer allow any
discussion in the faculty room that
started with kids today we're not doing
that you know because kids today are so
you know but i always feel like you know
you always hear the kids today don't
they don't know the value of work you
know and i always say have you ever seen
them play a game are you kidding me when
they have an objective that they want to
meet like i haven't played eldon ring
but i've watched enough videos on it to
know that it's not gonna work for me
because
i will get killed
so many times i'll just say well that
was the worst fifty dollar service
that's part of the process bob
oh my god i don't know life's too short
you know if somebody wants to get past
that particular bad guy or that boss
they will do it over and over and over
again and they'll learn as they're going
right i think okay that didn't work but
maybe this will work so they're using
the creative minds they're learning you
know and if they're playing you know
collaboratively then they're you know
working out okay you do this i'll do
this we'll do you know there's all kinds
of learning going they're not afraid of
hard work they are not afraid of doing
stuff that's hard they're not lazy but
if you give them stuff that's not
engaging if they don't feel like you
care about them as people if the stuff
that you're presenting presented in a
boring fashion and it's kind of wrote
i'd be lazy too yeah in fact i was yeah
yeah yeah i'm curious at the start of
our conversation you mentioned that this
will be your last year full time in the
classroom what are your plans for the
future well gosh
it's a work in progress but i mean i
love
the learning space i mean that is what
gets me up in the morning i live for the
aha moments when somebody the light goes
on and i'm like yes i get it you know
that's what i love doing and i want to
continue doing that i'm sure i'm going
to be in some online space somewhere so
i have you know i'm talking with some
people i have some might be some
opportunities maybe some online courses
you know five classes a day plus all the
attendant you know everything else that
you have it's just you know it's time to
change but yeah i'm in a very fortunate
position in that i actually do love like
know and i love
you know i love being you know at that
intersection of learning and technology
and kids and cool stuff and that's it's
just too much fun i can't give that up
you know but it's probably going to move
to another platform
are there any questions or topics that
we haven't discussed that you'd like to
chat about well i'd like to hear you
know what do you think about the future
of not just education but cs education
you're in this space you know you're
more plugged in than i am with all the
different things that are going on and
you know it seems like we're definitely
getting some traction what do you see in
the future i think we're gonna have to
have some really in-depth conversations
about it's not just about
doing cs
in the classroom
it's also about how you do it and how
frequently you do it so we have quite
the range of implementation whether it's
a standalone computer science class like
mine was in the k-8 school that i was at
it was a mandatory class for every
student to learn how to program all
throughout not an elective it's like you
go to your music class you go to your
art class you'd also go to your coding
class et cetera that is a very different
approach than hey let's just integrate
it through computational thinking so we
can check off some of these standards
and we'll do it in our ela class so
depending on how it's implemented it's
going to have a significant impact on
how much time you can actually spend
learning the subject area and to what
depth and degree and then
like if it's integrated and it's this
watered-down computational thinking
version of computer science and not
actually learning how to code or
learning how to create through the
things you are learning it's going to
create like a new equity issue in terms
of
okay but how much of it do you actually
understand if we feel like this is
something that everybody needs to know
okay well we're implementing in such
drastically different ways that the
outcomes are going to be
night and day and so as a field we need
to really discuss
how frequently it's actually done and
then
how it's done along the continuum of
implementation
that's pretty interesting i mean i'm
just thinking our cs program
everybody has to take it grades five
through nine and then after ninth grade
you can apply to be in the program i
think just last year and we're kind of a
boy heavy school traditionally we've
gotten to the point where we have a
majority of females in the program and i
think one of the reasons why is it you
know what i do voice and choice and
following your passions and all that
that's exactly what they do in the upper
school they're using different platforms
like vr coding and you know cool stuff
like that and it's hard again because
they're creating their own thing
there's no template to follow you know
they're programming in unity and you
have to make it do something that you
want it to do that nobody's ever done
before i guess if i were in one of your
deep conversations i would be
not on the side of incorporating
computational thinking into ela yeah
whenever a district asks for my honest
opinions on things i will frequently
bring up like okay you're basically
asking students to learn a brand new
language or maybe even a musical
instrument and if you give them one hour
per quarter on this thing and you don't
actually give them the instrument to
play with or you don't actually teach
them i don't know the japanese that
they're going to use how do you think
that's going to end up for them if they
experience this for like nine years like
they would in the k8 schools that i work
with it would not go well but if instead
every single week you are keep going
back into it keep diving deep into it
and you actually gave them the
instrument to play with to practice or
the language to speak with and listen to
that's going to be
extremely different so if i stick with
the instrument metaphor like i want to
actually give students the instrument to
play with and i want to give them the
time to play with it and the resources
to actually dive deep into actually
getting good at it not just playing the
same four chords over and over once per
quarter like that's gonna get you
nowhere and ultimately is it a problem
with scheduling too i mean there's just
time constraints and oh certainly i mean
i know of one particular administrator
who said in a meeting i really think
this whole computer science thing's a
fad
it wasn't that long ago and i thought it
must be nice to live in that world you
know where
i mean all of the other subjects are
already well established you know
nobody's going to argue about you know
geometry or physics or social studies or
french or math or whatever so they've
already staked out that part of you know
the day and nobody's going to argue with
that so i mean it's funny i i don't know
if you're familiar with the i watched
some of gary steger's stuff very
progressive and you know his answer is
how would you change schools he said
throw out half the curriculum yeah and
he said it doesn't even matter which
half just pick a half throw it out you
know i mean everybody when you say that
everybody who has a vested interest is
like no
i can't do that because that'll throw
out mine you know or they need to know
blah blah you know but i mean i always
feel like the i heard somewhere that
japanese math textbooks are like really
really thin you know and ours are like
like door stops you know but they go
really deep
into just a few things whereas our thing
is let's just cover
everything and so as a result they don't
really understand a lot but we've quote
unquote covered stuff yeah i mean if we
think that computer science is going to
be the last subject area that is
suddenly going to be hey everybody needs
to know this like that is a mistake so
if we look forward
life skills like
things that you would learn from a
therapist i wish i learned the things
that i learned from a therapist when i
was going through school that would have
been nice to have that as a mandatory
part of my curriculum okay but what
about even home economics stuff like
whether it's like personal finances or
even like learning how to cook those are
things that i took classes on a middle
school but they weren't required they
are certainly things that i think would
be beneficial for everyone so why don't
we add that what about our personal
health and whatnot in terms of like our
physical not just our mental but like
even health about how to be sanitary and
whatnot like that clearly is something
that is useful okay well that's
important but what about like all the
lack of like medical professionals that
we've realized that we have in the last
couple of years if we think that is
important but what about the lack of
chips that we've had that's preventing
me from being able to purchase a car
right now because of like our prius
being vandalized like there's so many
things it's like no this thing is now
more important now this thing is now
more important etc so if we just keep
adding more and more all we're going to
end up doing is just diluting everything
that students are learning so my opinion
also kind of aligns with gary's is like
yeah i mean you can't learn everything
and if all we're going to do is just
like skim on the surface of all these
topics like when are we actually going
to develop expertise good question
all of the interested parties get a
little bit of what they want you know
and you can't argue against any of those
things that you mentioned they're all
important so let's do it all we'll do it
all five minutes each every single day
it'll be great
oh my god oh so i guess the last
question that i have is where my people
go to connect with you and the
organizations that you work with okay
well i'm currently the
work with is the porter goud school in
charleston south carolina it's going to
be bittersweet to leave there because
it's been great they've been super
supportive of the cs program that we've
built there excited about that and the
future that it holds there my youtube
channel i'm crouching python on youtube
capital c capital p no spaces as i
always tell my students because there's
somebody else that's trying to steal it
on twitter i'm birv two room numeral two
you know i'm bobert gmail.com if anybody
ever wants to email me but you know
those are my coordinates i guess
and i love talking to people about any
of this stuff i love it i always have
i've always been that teacher who's got
connections outside of the four walls of
the school and always wants to you know
anybody that i see that's doing
something cool i always hit them up and
say oh tell me about this how'd you do
it you know what was involved in that
and you know
how can i get better at it i'm still
learning and if you know people hear
something that they hear me say that
they have a question about i would love
you know to chat with you about it happy
to do it and with that that concludes
this week's episode of the cska podcast
brilliant reminder that you can find
bob's contact information in the show
notes at jaredlery.com so make sure you
reach out to bob stay tuned next week
for another episode and until then i
hope you're all staying safe and are
having a wonderful week

Guest Bio

In his career, Bob Irving has taught every grade from 1st through adult, spent time teaching English and history, and for the last 15 years taught computer science at the middle school level. He has been a Minecraft Global Mentor, a Raspberry Pi Certified Educator and has presented at numerous conferences. He lives for the "aha" moments. Recently retired from full-time classroom teaching, he has launched his own educational services business: CrouchingPython EdVentures. You can visit his website at www.crouchingpython.org, his YouTube channel under his avatar "CrouchingPython", or read his book "Hard Fun" on Amazon. In his spare time, he has a musical alter ego named Chicago Bob who plays blues guitar.

Resources/Links Relevant to This Episode

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Check out Bob’s book, Hard Fun: Supercharge your middle school computer science classroom with project-based, hands-on, just-in-time learning!
Learn more about Minecraft Education Edition
Connect with Bob
Find other CS educators and resources by usin g the #CSK8 hashtag on Twitter