In the last two days, I've been teaching twenty-year-old Nicole to use Squeak Etoys. She's never done any programming before, nor does she really know why she'd want to be a programmer, which puts her in the majority. I'm teaching her as warm-up for some video tutorials I'm making for the general public, the first of which is rendering right now. Teaching a novice to program is a humbling task, particularly for an expert. I'm mindful of the pacing of my presentation. Too much and eyes glaze over, too little and boredom sets in. Constructionism is a great fit to...

Somewhere along a distant shore a child walks with eyes that burn. She sees everything, from the mother dog and pup searching through garbage for food, to the tangle of fishing line in the sea grapes. She takes in the details, both beautiful and terrible. She braces through flood of feeling. At home, she cannot speak of it. At school, she fears response. In her heart, there is a passion for the world. Her talent is on the edge of immeasurable. Would that we could say to her, "Be true" ... to tell her this flood might someday sustain her,...