How to get your kids to love coding
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TIMESLEDGER | QNS.COM | APRIL 30-MAY 6, 2021 17
BY YUMIO SANEYOSHI
As parents, we want to expose
our kids to as many intellectually
stimulating and
emotionally growing activities
as possible. When we see our
friends’ kids taking a coding
class, we immediately think,
“Should we be signing up our
kid to be the next Mark Zuckerberg?”
How exactly should we go
about this? From a fancy coding
camp at Stanford University
to free online resources,
there are tons of choices, which
can be overwhelming.
Many think that coding is
like learning addition and subtraction
in math. Take a few
lessons to learn what a loop
is and how to write an if/then
and you’re done. But memorizing
the definition of a loop
is useless unless the student
uses it to solve a problem or
task. Parents have a specific
language in mind when they
sign up their kids for coding
lessons. They might say, “My
office IT uses Python. I want
my kids to learn Python.” But
when it comes to kids learning
to code, they first need to start
by unlocking their passion for
creation.
Learning coding is
like learning a musical
instrument
I often tell parents that
learning coding is like learning
to play a musical instrument.
The most important
criteria for choosing an appropriate
instrument for your
child should be the child’s enjoyment
of playing that instrument.
Just as a parent should
not force a child to play the
oboe because it will help them
get into Stanford (it doesn’t),
you should not force a particular
coding language on a
child because of some market
demand for certain coding languages
at a particular time.
The primary ingredient
for success in coding education
is motivation. While an
adult might grind through
coding boot camp with the
promise of a high-paying job,
kids are best motivated by inner
joy. The most obvious inner
joy is when hard work and
patience is rewarded by their
newly found ability to create
something of value that can
be shared with others. Inner
joy is one of the most powerful
motivations to overcome kids’
tendencies to give up when
faced with a challenge.
I found that even the most
technologically reticent child
can be coaxed into spending a
few hours per week working
on code if they see that their efforts
lead to creating a game or
app that they can call all their
own. We have seen numerous
eyes light up when they make
their first simple calculator (as
long as they can color the keys
lavender and use Lobster font)
or a little Javascript animation
sequence that they designed to
tell a story.
Through carefully curated
projects and exercises, kids
gradually pick up how to talk
to the computer. They learn to
channel all the great ideas they
have about what they want
to build into a structure that
a computer can understand.
Once the code language makes
sense to them, nothing can
stop them from creating the
next great app or algorithm.
Teaching to debug
Beyond the basic concepts of
coding like loops and conditionals,
the most important thing
for kids to learn is the ability
to debug their own code. Once
kids gain the self-confidence to
debug their own code, like the
proverb about teaching a man
to fish to feed them a lifetime,
you’ve taught them how to
self-learn from the vast world
of online resources for coding.
No matter what programming
language they need to learn,
they will have the ability to
overcome challenges with the
assistance of billions of online
resources if they possess this
critical skill.
You do not learn debugging
by memorization. Debugging
requires an understanding
of how the computer thinks
and how you must adapt your
commands to conform to that
thinking. Kids need to develop
a “sense” for what works and
what doesn’t in coding without
trying to memorize the
rules. They must think like
a computer, not memorize 10
different ways to write a for a
loop. As anyone who has tried
to talk to Amazon’s Alexa or
Google Home Assistant knows,
the computer has a certain
pattern that it recognizes, and
it’s useless to try to plead it to
understand how we think. We
must adapt our commands into
phrases that it can understand.
In coding, don’t sweat the
details
Some parents, especially
computer programmers, want
their kids to learn best practices
in software development
from the very beginning. I often
discourage this approach. Software
development best practices
make sense for professional
coders and those who already
understand the consequences
of certain coding patterns. It
can be quite confusing and inexplicable
for those just learning
coding for the first time.
The child needs to possess
some basic vocabulary to build
up their computer program,
but putting them together to
accomplish the task should be
entirely up to them. Let them
discover the faults in certain
approaches to problems so they
can learn from their mistakes.
Worrying about the most efficient
way of doing something
should only come after the student
has gained enough experience
to understand the need for
such best practices.
It is cliche to expound that
fact that coding opens so many
doors. Almost all our teachers
who learned to code after they
arrived in college wish they
had started when they were
still in grade school. Coding is
a lifelong pursuit, even if you
never become a professional
software developer. Let coding
become a tool to foster your
kid’s inner joy.
EDUCATION
/QNS.COM
