When I was a kid, my school was in the middle of installing brand new computers and creating a computer lab for students to learn how to type and be mindful of posture. Nowadays there are programs that some schools adopted to be able to teach their kids how to code. I didn’t know about this until I sat down with one of my godsons and asked him about all of his favorite video games. He knew that people wrote code to do it and even said he wanted to enroll in the program that their school had to learn how to code.
Beyond the more obvious benefits of advocating for coding to be taught in schools, here are a few more ! :
Computer programming promotes logical thinking
Coding requires logical thinking and teaches children how to tackle complex problems by breaking them down into smaller problems which are easier to manage and solve. This process is called decomposition. Even if children never become a professional computer programmer or software engineer, they will benefit from learning to think this way.
Learning to code helps a students’ creativity
Coding allows students to be creators. After all, coding is all about creating something new. How cool would it be to be able to design your own app or video game? With code, kids can create projects that they love. By learning to code students learn to maximize their creativity and learn how to come up with their own ideas in order to solve their problem. This is an essential skill that stretches far beyond a computer.
When students learn to code they develop persistence
Perseverance is not an easy trait to teach, especially to a child or student. However, it is an important skill to have in life in general. We don’t want children to just give up when they come across a problem or obstacle, we want them to keep going. Coding teaches children persistence, that in order to solve the problem they have, they must keep going, coming up with different solutions until they have the right one.
Learning to code can improve a child’s communication skills
Learning to code is like learning a new language. Sure, it may not be Spanish or Italian, but learning to code uses some of the same skills we develop when we learn a new language. When we learn a new language, we become better communicators. Why? We need to know how to break things down to speak simply. This is the same with coding. Computers only understand instructions when they are written in simple easy to follow language that the computer understands. Coding helps to develop that skill.
Children improve their structural thinking when learning to code
When students learn to code they develop structural thinking. They learn how to build something large from lots of other smaller pieces put together. This helps kids to understand not just about computer programs but also helps kids to see the big picture when they are given any task made up of small parts.
Coding helps kids learn to learn
Generally, when children learn in a classroom, there is a teacher who teaches a particular subject. With coding, children are able to experiment and learn themselves. Experimenting with code allows children to understand that sometimes the answers are not always simple, and sometimes there is more than one answer to a particular problem.
A great benefit of learning to code teaches children that it is ok if their answer is different to someone else’s. It teaches them to learn how to learn and this is important all through life. You can find more reasons to teach children coding here !