Making learning more reciprocative through a vision of what it’d be like after the learning is complete, is very similar to how good products are designed.

It was a book-perfect place in the verandah beyond the doorstep of your old little place in Lower Parel, listening to the stories you would tell us, making clay figures with all the children there, and laughing at the little things you’d get happy over. The little me would wonder what a single visit from us had that you craved so much, no one else would get so very delighted. Time went by and we were able to surprise more than you would surprise us.

Some weeks back, our team had organized a code sprint at Kozhikode, one of the first sprints organised away from our office in Mumbai, and I was lucky enough to be one of members who were to go. To me, it was going to be a new experience on so many levels, with the first stage being probably the most exciting of all.

Art in Children’s Books talks about the importance of good books (Hurray for Tintin!) when it comes to making children grasp the wonders of the wide world. But the (relatively) new field of programming is popularly considered arcane, partly because it derives from and touches upon so many other domains. But what gets hidden behind all that detail is that it is actually a way of thinking, and hence it isn’t generally thought of as something you’d teach to little kids.