When Learning Jumps Levels: Rethinking the Path from Simple to Advanced

I often say that with complex topics, we need to approach them step by step, so that the reader understands how we arrived there: from simple to complex, just as one of the core principles of education suggests, where sequencing matters.
And indeed, the order does matter. But it seems to me that sometimes certain concepts, even though they are more advanced than earlier ones and should logically come later, might actually represent the start of a different stage of thinking and therefore could deserve to be introduced first.

I often think about this: when a problem appears, the first solution that comes to mind is usually the trivial one. But sometimes it would be better if the advanced, optimal solution came to mind first.

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 From https://youtu.be/X1HSGEADAhE?t=1573 : 

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We even teach student programmers in their first years, when they still don’t understand what programming is and are seeing a computer for the first time. Many of them we teach to program in C or C++.

And then, once they’ve learned C or C++, a year or two passes, and in their third or fourth year, or even later when they’ve already become programmers, we start retraining or further educating them in proper design.

We tell them:
"You know, objects are actually certain entities, certain abstractions inside your program. And these objects should have the property of encapsulation. They should hide information."

The programmer—well, the C-style programmer—looks at this and it’s all new to them.
"What do you mean, hide information? How is it that they should encapsulate data and not expose it?"

Well, in C, everything is exposed. In C, there’s global state basically everywhere.
Sure, it’s not encouraged, but people still do it. Global variables are a common practice.

And suddenly, in their third or fourth year—or even in their fifteenth year of working as a programmer—they’re told that everything should have been done differently in OOP. And that’s the problem.

So Richard proposes:
"Let’s introduce them to OOP in the first year—before we even teach them how to program, before they write their first program. Let’s explain what OOP is, why objects are needed, what encapsulation and polymorphism are."

He believes they can understand it—even if it’s with sticks and pictures, with some auxiliary or educational languages.

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