The Clever Monkey

There was a local Twitter call-out for “mentors” to assist with teaching girls, age 8-13, in learning HTML and CSS for National Girls Learning Code Day. So, I thought, “why not”, and volunteered my time; now it looks like I’m showing up at 10AM tomorrow to act as a sort of web coding expert.

There was a brief moment when I panicked about my spotty HTML and CSS experience, and started to plan a crash course review of HTML 5 and CSS selectors and…

… then I realized they really just want someone with basic skills to encourage and facilitate learning. If I can help make that fun, then we can call it a win. As with most things in life, showing up when someone asks you, and not being an asshole when you do show up, is pretty much the majority of what is expected.

Because I’m no HTML/CSS expert. I “designed” this site, insofar as I wrote all the code that drives the Jekyll that tells GitHub how to make the content. But any pro designer will tell you that any joker can do that. But this experience is enough that I can help the next generation of expert designers get their start. I suspect the real trick will be staying out of their way, actually.

Even better is that I’m armed with the experience of teaching Python to a 5-year old (who has recently caught wind of this awesome thing called “Ruby” that she has decided is the Best Thing Ever so I guess I better figure out Ruby turtle graphics pretty quick) so I expect this is going to be a pretty awesome day.

Here’s to inclusive community building.