Instructing a newbie in programming is like trying to teach someone backwards logic.

Keep it up.

It is very rewarding when the newbie ask you an advance question while telling you his/her train of thought. In that moment you know your hard work have paid off.

@subspace mhm, I love teaching Critical Thinking, it's my jam

@mr-user it's not easy when the person is focused on what their professor told them

@theNox

What do you expect? They are going to focus on what their professor told them. They think of a professor as "authoritative person". Society train people to follow the "authoritative person". Otherwise you get vigilante and chaos.

The trick is to not go against the "authoritative person" but to supplement it. Let him/her first tell you what their professor said without going against "the professor".

"Only" after they have finish telling you what their professor said that you do your magic. You use words like "I am sure professor just forget to explain it in class but you can .... " , "Due to time constrain professor forget to mention that you can even do .... "

The important point is to use the word which doesn't oppose their "authoritative person."

This is step 1. Hinting that there are alternative way than what their "professor" said.

@mr-user you are right, thank you for the detailed explanation

Step 2 is that you repeat step 1 constantly.

After a while they will think that "yeah, maybe I can do it like that. Maybe professor forget to mention it"

Step 3

They will not come to you with their method. You got to positively encourage their method with words like "I am impress that you find that alternative method." and so on.

Even if they got the wrong solution find something to encourage them like "You are correct in this part but for this method you need to ... " , "You are correct if you are creating a simple program but for complex program you need to .... "

@theNox

Edit :

In step 3 "They will not come to you with their method" should be "They will come to you with their method"

Step 3 is to build their confidence. It doesn't matter whether they provide the correct solution. If they have confidence their solution (more importantly themselves) , they will try to analysis the method rather than follow it blindly because you praise their effort.

Result is everything in our field/world but we want people to appreciate our efforts.

To summarize don't oppose their authoritative person and never undermine their effort. If you do either of the thing , they will think you are attacking them and will not come back to you.

I hope your find success in teaching other people. Maybe even comment back the result after the while.

Teaching is so rewarding @mr-user knows what he’s talking about