Confession: I used to think coding was boring. And confusing. And something I didn’t have time to learn about. I thought it was all about memorizing numbers, letters, characters. I remembered my early days of building a classroom website and playing with HTML, tinkering in Flash, and it all left a bad taste in my mouth about coding. Like spoiled milk.
But then I woke up. About a year and a half ago, that all started to change. I took a group of students to a BotBall class, and I realized, some kids are visual learners, some kids are auditory learners, and some kids speak in code. No, it’s not that easy to classify kids into categories, I’m not that naive. But coding? It offers something. Something special. Something for kids who think a bit differently. Kids who enjoy logic and puzzles and figuring things out.
Almost a year and a half later, I watched a PreK student program a BeeBot to zoom to a number they rolled with the dice. I watched him press the arrows carefully, inputting the sequence that would tell the BeeBot which way to go, and how many squares to cover. Then? I saw him hit “Go.” I saw his joy as the BeeBot drove it’s way to the letter. I tried and my BeeBot went off the mat. I was humbled– one of the benefits of working in education–it certainly keeps you humble. It takes practice. “Try again,” he said. “I’ll show you.” He wasn’t kidding. He wanted to help me. And clearly, I needed help. These skills are all new to me.
Around that same time, 3rd graders were working on Scratch projects. I remember trying Scratch before. I didn’t get it. The cat was cute, but what was the point? I didn’t have time to fit this into my already packed curriculum. I was wrong. I downloaded and printed the Scratch cards and got started. As I watched kids create, explore, test, rebuild, design, and make scripts, I realized the power. They were taking charge of their learning. Writing the program. Experiencing failures. Retrying. Reworking. Rewriting. Celebrating success, “It worked!”
And that’s when I realized that four year old and that 3rd grader were very similar. They were both engaged and immersed in a world that spoke to them. Writing code, but also exploring cause and effect, sequencing, inferring, summarizing, and so much more. I had been avoiding something because I didn’t fully understand it. It’s not another subject or another thing to learn. It’s a language. It’s a way of creating that is powerful and it will encourage some students to learn about new things in new ways.
So, I admitted it to myself. Understanding everything before you teach it is not only impossible, it’s inauthentic and overrated. I was sitting and learning from a four year old. And it was awesome. I had third graders figuring out things and teaching me. And I’ll never look back. If you are like I once was, and you just think “coding” is a thing you don’t have time for, think of the kids in your class. The ones who speak in code. They are waiting for you to open the door to a whole new world and help them uncover their passions.
All you have to do is be willing to learn from them. Sit next to them. Listen to them. And that? It’s something we are all willing to do. So you are ready to code after all.
In honor of #HourOfCode coming up, we’ve started a Google Doc of activities for Primary and Elementary aged learners. Try an app or an activity. Please don’t wait until it all makes sense. Don’t reserve coding for middle school or high schoolers. It offers something for every age… even us. Because we are all still learners. When you see the kids’ excitement, it WILL all make sense. Trust me on that. Just like I trusted the four year old who taught me how to drive the BeeBot.