Teaching is actually very different than ability to self learn. I taught a class of 8-11 year old lower income but fairly motivated kids programming with Scratch over summer. Everyone did reasonably well but exactly 2 out of the 26 demonstrated the ability to push further and teach themselves more than what I taught in class by experimenting with the platform. This ability becomes much rarer the older you grow.

Of course the ability to push further and teach themselves is rare. It decreases monotonically with time spent in formal education as intrinsic motivation to learn is extinguished.

Intrinsic and extrinsic motivational orientations in the classroom: Age differences and academic correlates.

> Consistent with previous research, intrinsic motivation showed a significant linear decrease from 3rd grade through 8th grade and proved positively correlated with children's grades and standardized test scores

Enthusiastic students: A study of motivation in two alternatives to mandatory instruction

> The present study used Self-Determination Theory as a framework for examining age-related changes in motivation for 57 students aged 7-17 years in the context of two alternative educational environments: a home school resource center and a democratically organized school. Students completed the Academic Self-Regulation Questionnaire in order to assess their intrinsic motivation and three types of extrinsic motivation. In stark contrast to the well-replicated negative correlation between age and intrinsic motivation in traditional schools, there was no relationship between age and any of the four motivation subscale scores in the present study. Interpretations and implications of these findings are discussed.

Citation needed for the claim that 8-11 years old are at their highest for self motivation and ability to learn independently.

To me that sounds ridiculous. Especially since you based it their willingness to push themselves further in something like scratch (e.g. something they have no practical nor social reason to push themselves at).

I think he means core CS stuff like OS or compilers or algorithms. Programming =/= CS. You can be a good programmer who can build amazing apps or websites while having little idea about how an OS works or how to create/analyze some complex algorithm. I highly doubt most of those eight year olds or boot camp graduates can invert a binary tree.

No one knows how in to invert a binary tree until they learn what a binary tree is.I don't think the number of people who could learn computer science deeply is very small, although the number of people who really want to is probably small.

What’s strange is that people think “knowing how to invert a binary tree” is more important than “knowing how to program”.

Yes, I have a CS degree.

> What’s strange is that people think “knowing how to invert a binary tree” is more important than “knowing how to program”

More important: Knowing how to work with other people

I don't care how well you can code, if you can't interface with people and know how to switch up your lexicon there's going to be a problem in a lot of teams. I'm not a programmer, but when I'm in interviews for them I look to see how well they can interact & discuss their projects with me without divulging into intense CS discussion.

Having a CS background I agree with this.

Problems exist at many levels of complexity and they can be solved in many different ways. Clever architecture often beats clever programming.

I see a similar mentality in professors who boast of a low pass rate in their courses, like it's a good thing. They're trying to signal "this is a hard course, only the smartest folks can get through it. Plebs need not apply." But I feel the truth is closer to "I'm not a skilled teacher, and I have no interest in improving my skills".

The difference in teaching philosophy of these profs vs the ones who actually teach is the difference between a fashion model school and the army. The latter accepts anyone and trains them to succeed whereas modelling schools only accept good looking people to begin with.