It's Never Too Early: Why Kids Should Learn to Code

Before, there were 3 Rs: Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic. Now there is a fourth: Coding. Coding is being introduced into school curriculums all around the world.

Australia is introducing the Digital Curriculum this year. Christopher Pyne, who was Education Minister when the move was first announced, said it was because ““High quality school STEM education is critically important for Australia’s productivity and economic wellbeing, both now and into the future”.

In September 2014, the UK replaced ICT with Computing, to reflect the fact that most kids are tech natives and already have those skills. Singapore ran a Code for Fun pilot program in 12 schools in 2014. The province of British Columbia, Canada, has just announced plans to add coding to the high school curriculum. Premier Clark noted “Tech companies will locate in places where they can find the people that will be capable of doing the work”, and so he wanted to make it so more B.C. people could do the work.

In 2012, Estonia introduced coding in primary schools, starting with first grade. Why so early? “We want to change thinking that computers and programs are just things as they are. There is an opportunity to create something, and be a smart user of technology,” says ProgeTiiger coordinator Ave Lauringson. Many other countries in the EU have implemented coding classes in primary schools, including: Austria, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Hungary, Ireland, Lithuania, Malta, Spain, Poland, Portugal, and Slovakia.

Coding is not just for the working world

When I was younger, as a hobby I used to read about politics, mythology, business, and history. Now, kids are programming plugins and drones and arduinos and games instead...or as well! Why? Coding is FUN!

• If they learn computational thinking and design patterns while learning to code, they'll be able to code in any coding language. Coding has many uses, which include: designing a game, speeding up a process at work, creating a calculator to simplify decision making, making people laugh by building a one-pager around a meme...the list goes on.

• Kids who learn how to code will be better able to understand how the world around them works. We hate to get all Wu-Tang Clan on you, but it's true to say that Code Rules Everything Around Us, and so who rules (writes and/or owns) the code makes the rules.

• Solving a problem with code gives kids confidence they can build something. The feeling that they can control & influence the world around them is powerful, and will make them more assertive and confident later in life.

• Kids learn better & faster when young. Why not take advantage of that?

• By designing programs intended for other people’s use, kids can learn how people think. This can teach them empathy.

• Kids could end up learning marketing by proxy by working out how to convince people to use their work. A pretty good skill to have in an era when companies are trying to outsource as much as they can to software...and just offshore.

• The urge to complete a project can encourage a habit of self-directed learning. This drive can be applied to learning how to do many other things. Starting a journey of life long learning can only be a beautiful thing.

What’s the holdup?

Teachers around the world mostly do not have the skillset required to teach programming, and try as they might, some simply may not have the aptitude. Self-taught students have taken on the role of the teacher in many classrooms, instructing their classmates as well as their teacher. In the UK, only 15% of teachers judged themselves as “completely computer savvy”. Only 40% had the ability to teach the classes in the UK Computing curriculum. In Australia, the stats would be very similar, if not worse.

But there’s a solution.

There’s a course for that

We have Coding and Makerspace workshops tailored for children of different age groups and development stages: 8 -> 12, and 12+. For kids interested in film production, we have a workshop, for those interested in game design, another. They'll learn these new skills in intensive sessions, ensuring they retain what they've learned and take home a project. 

It’s easier than ever to start

Drag and drop programming apps like Scratch and Hopscotch are making it easier than ever for kids to start learning to code. Twelve year old Hopscotch games developer, Kedai, chose it because she found typing everything out too confusing.

“I was wondering how people made games like Minecraft and others — how all of that worked,” she said in the Hopscotch Q&A.

Coding is a skill anyone can pick up with practice! “Nobody actually teaches you how to get good at coding, and even if they try, you have to figure it out for yourself to get really good,” Kedai said. When she grows up, she wants to be a coder, or maybe an engineer.

At Coder Academy, we teach Scratch to primary schoolers at Redfern Community Centre each week. Ruegen Aschenbrenner, Coder Academy’s teaching assistant, says: “Scratch is a drag and drop programming language that is designed to make programming fun. It gets past the syntax so all kids have to do is think about how to complete the challenge set. In Scratch, you grab blocks and place them in the ‘code’. When put in the right combination, the ‘functions’ can perform actions.”

I'll finish with a word from a Year 11 UK student quoted in the International Business Times:

“Computing is a lot different because there are so many cool things you can do. With ICT all you have to do is basically 'learn this' and 'learn that', but computing is 'when you learn this and learn that, you can put your knowledge all together into one and make a program that works.”

Coder Academy is the most loved Australian Coding Bootcamp provider according to Course Report. Our accredited coding Bootcamps will set you up for a new career in tech via our Fast Track Bootcamp or our Flex Track Bootcamp . Our immersive courses help students acquire in-demand skills through hands on, project-based training by industry educators and experts.

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