Fear Of Failure Is The Biggest Obstacle to Teaching High Schoolers How To Program A Computer

What is the hardest concept for high school students to grasp when learning programming? The concept of an "object" is initially hard to understand, making it hard to decide how two objects should be related, and which methods should belong to which classes. At a higher level though, the hardest concept is a willingness to fail. Granted, learning to fail is difficult and uncomfortable, and the vast majority of adults don't think in this way. It's also by no means necessary to being able to program. But it's an incredibly valuable skill - willingness to tolerate and even embrace failure enables risk-taking, experimentation, innovation.