Why Should I be Teaching my Kids to Code?

 

With the new school year we have finally seen the arrival of coding in the classroom. The thick, dusty, 80’s ICT textbook has been thrown out and been replaced with a shiny new ‘computing’ eBook, which will teach kids as young as 5 how to code, and allow them to make their own programs and digital media.

 

Micky Gove, in a rare moment of credibility, said this when announcing the changes to the curriculum back in September 2013:

“Teaching pupils, over and over again, how to word-process… [is] about as much use as teaching children to send a telex or travel in a zeppelin.

Our new curriculum teaches children computer science, information technology and digital literacy: teaching them how to code,and how to create their own programs; not just how to work a computer, but how a computer works and how to make it work for you.”

 

I remember my school ICT lessons consisted of: waiting 15 minutes for Windows 98′ to boot up, then saving a word file, screenshotting it, renaming the file, screenshotting it, attaching it to an email, and then getting a D grade for forgetting to screenshot it. Even at the time (just 5 short years ago), I remember looking at my friend’s iPods and wondered why we were being forced to document our knowledge of basic Microsoft office functionality that we had already learnt just by writing up work for other lessons .

 

We spent most of our time each lesson playing dirt bike flash games online. It wasn’t that we were problem children, we were just bored of being patronised and unchallenged.

But with this new change to the curriculum, we can hope to see kids spending less time playing flash games, and more time making them.

 

 

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So, What is this Code Nonsense?

Code is the colloquial umbrella term for the language of computers that is readable by us mere bio-organisms. All computer software, mobile apps and websites are constructed out of lines and lines of source code, which can then be translated into machine code to be processed by computers. It gives computers a functional logic so they know what to do at any given time.

Every single computer device you own: your smartphone, your smart watch, your Netflix account, your SatNav, your Tamagotchi, your toaster that prints the weather forecast onto your toast – is powered by code. Learning code would give your children the basic tools needed to make any computer device they can possibly think of.

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But How will Learning this Benefit my Kids?

 

We are constantly bombarded with digital media all the time, and while we read the information it gives us, (for me it’s usually “Your order to Gree-Zee’s Pizza has been accepted”), we have no idea of how it is delivered (the info not the pizza) to us, and what the message itself is made out of.

Learning to code is like learning a new language, in the sense that it opens up a whole section of the world for you to communicate with. Except, unlike Spanish, code allows you to command your robot minions.

And while learning to code doesn’t allow you to literally see into the matrix, it allows to to write digital media rather than just read it. It will turn you or your child from consumer to creator.

 

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But my Kid’s going to be a Surgeon, not a Computer Scientist!

That’s fine, little Jimmy can still learn code and his scalpel hand will still be steady as a rock.

You see, main advantage of children learning code is not just that it teaches them a language, it also teaches them mathematical ideas such as variables and conditionals, problem solving techniques for fixing bugs, a logical framework that can be applied to the real world, and the process of design.

Children, using one of the many fun educational coding tools available, can have their own ideas, create and collaborate with their own projects, fail, learn how to adapt and overcome this failure, and ultimately end up with a cool little creation that comes straight out of their imagination. Understanding this design process will be useful at any age, no matter what they want to create or achieve.

 

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Scratch

This friendly beard-with-glasses is Mitchel Resnick, founder of Scratch – a simple and intuitive tool that engages kids with code and allows them to share their projects and knowledge with other kids all over the world. When using a tool like Scratch to create fun games and animations, a technical skill like coding is being combined with the near-unlimited creativity the tool allows for, giving users a headstart with a real-life skill learnt in a meaningful context.
He also talks of how some more advance users (11 year olds as opposed to 9 year olds) have taken it upon themselves to help and collaborate with other users to make the best project possible. Resnick explains that by teaching code children aren’t just “learning to code – they’re coding to learn”.

 

And remember, most people who learn French in primary school don’t go on to be translators, and we all learn to read and write yet we are not all authors. It’s because we are surrounded by the written & spoken word and it’s our gateway to each other and all of our shared knowledge.

But now, we get receive most of our information through our computers – email, news articles, advert banners – so in the same way we learn how to communicate face-to-face, we should learn how to communicate and collaborate through our computers too. So the question should be less “Why is my kid learning to code?”, and rather “Why haven’t I learnt to code yet?”