I faced an audience of four-year-olds - and lived to tell the tale!

[andrewducker]

A couple of days ago I went in to Sophia's room at nursery in the middle of the afternoon and spent fifteen minutes talking to a group of fifteen four-year-olds about what I do for a job.

Obviously, I can't share the cute photo I have of it (not without whiting out so much of it that it would be completely pointless), but I had a good time, I had many many questions and comments (my favourite being the child who told me that his father had ten computers, one of which could turn into a robot and shoot people), and the kids seemed to enjoy telling me things about computers in their lives.

Here are the bullet points I wrote in advance, in case anyone else needs to talk about computers to a bunch of people with very little experience of them:

* Who has an adult who uses a computer?
* Do they look like a box, with a screen and a keyboard? (multiple responses about laptops here)
* Computers can be big or small. As big as a whole room sometimes, or so small you could balance one on your finger.
* They're all around us, inside lots of things, like phones, and tablets, and watches, and TVs, and (multiple responses about other things that might be computers)
* They think very fast, but they are very stupid. You have to be very very careful what you tell them, otherwise they'll do the wrong thing.
* Mostly they do maths - lots of simple things with numbers.
* It turns out we can turn a lot of things into numbers - like words, and pictures, and videos, and even games. And once we have, computers can then move them about, and change them, and let us play with them.
* Lots of computers can talk to each other. So people can put things on one computer, and then everyone around the world can see them. Like pictures of cats (cue many responses about other things you might see on the internet)

Sophia was delighted to have me in her room, and was very happy to sit in the front row and make intermittent faces at me. I'm now kinda looking forward to doing the same for her when she's in school :-)

Comments

[altamira16]

This is just great! What types of things did they think you might see on the internet? Did they have a lot of ideas about which cartoons are on the internet?

[andrewducker]

I don't think they've made the connection that cartoons/tv/videos are on it yet. Mostly it was about pictures.

[calimac]

They think very fast, but they are very stupid. You have to be very very careful what you tell them, otherwise they'll do the wrong thing.

Now that one ought to be put up on the wall of anybody who works on AI.

[danieldwilliam]

Office politics and a sense of sense of self-preservation ought to prevent me asking if the things that think very fast, but are very stupid are the computers of the people working on AI.

[svnsettia]

i came here to comment on the same thing!!

[cmcmck]

And people often ask teachers what it is they see in the job!

This answers that pretty well, I think! What I miss about my teaching career after burn out move on before retirement is the kids!:o)

[mtbc]

It's great that you were able to do this, my kids' schools seemed always chronically last-minute in actually asking/telling us of this kind of opportunity so I never had much of a chance, along with the typical, now we need your child to bring in this item that you don't have at home, before you next plan to go near any relevant shop. At least there was the occasional opportunity to provide them corresponding feedback.

[danieldwilliam]

one of which could turn into a robot and shoot people),

It'll never catch on.

[andrewducker]

It certainly caught the imagination of their classmates!

[snippy]

That sounds terrific!

I did the same thing but for a school room of 7-year-olds. I remember bringing in lots of props (I am a legal secretary so it was things like a hole punch, a dictation/transcription machine with foot pedal, a legal file with the two prongs at the top of the inside) and talking about the work I did but more importantly, that it was a job you could leave at 5 pm and have vacation time/sick leave. The teacher asked what was most important to learn in school for this job and I talked about spelling and grammar, which she appreciated.

[andrewducker]

I shall emphasise work benefits and life balance when I'm talking to them in a few years time!

[threemeninaboat]

This is very sweet.

[jack]

Oh, awesome. Well done!

They think very fast, but they are very stupid. You have to be very very careful what you tell them, otherwise they'll do the wrong thing.

I skimmed and I thought this was referring to a class of children, or to people in general! I think that's still an amazing quite either way!

[fub]

That's some really cool explanations about what computers are and what they do. Great to be able to explain that to little children!