Coding in Schools: The Why

Photo by Florian Olivo on Unsplash

I remember many years ago when coding first became a rage among progressive teachers and thinking it made sense. Many of the arguments I heard were about jobs and future employment. 

I also heard some arguments about coding being like learning a foreign language. This made a lot of sense to me because there are some parallels I can see: 

• coding has a kind of grammar with its syntax, 
• coding has a vocabulary and if you don't know it, you need to learn it to speak fluently,
• coding communicates a message.

And I tried to incorporate coding - for a time. Then, I kind of stopped.

I wish I were back in the classroom because I would find a way to incorporate coding into the curriculum. I think it is more than just a job skill or another language - there is so much more to it.

In the past few weeks especially I have been working on a coding project and I have noticed a few skills that I use frequently:

• Resilience - my code often doesn't work. When it doesn't I have to go back and figure it out. 
• This often involves a fair amount of research. Knowing what questions to ask and using search terms to find information does lead to more success.
• Editing. When the code does not work, it is usually due to a missing comma or semicolon. I feel that I am becoming more careful in what I do. 

Does it transfer though? That is something I am still trying to figure out.