I teach a programming elective course to middle school students (12-14 years old); We meet three days per week for about an hour each day. Over the course of nine weeks the students come up with a the concept of a simple game, and implement it from scratch in python. Most of the students have never programmed before, although some have created incredibly complex machinations in Minecraft or other creative building games. I try to approach the course as not an introduction to programming but as an introduction to the idea that computers can be more than just consumption devices. There are usually around 6 students in the class (with a much longer wait-list) and invariably there is at least one student who doesn't want to write code. So I try to aim them at designing the game assets (images, music) or coming up with _how_ the game should be played at a high level.

I am not a teacher by education. I do contract development work and have my own bootstrapped start up. I teach because when I look back at my own education, I wish that I had had an opportunity to get away from the mindless drudgery of being "taught to a test." I also teach because I am terrified of a world in which computers (and other electronics) are only seen/used as consumption devices.

I don't think that I am perfect teacher, but I think that this is how all teachers should be; Not someone who has an academic degree in teaching, but someone who has done the actual thing that they are instructing others to do. It is time to dispel the old adage of "those who can, do, and those who can't, teach."