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MODELEX BLOG
Benefits of Teaching Children to Code
Written by Alp Aslan
Head of Maths and Computer Science at Modelex, Monaco.

LEARNING TO CODE

When a child learns to code, they are not just learning how to become a software engineer, or work in tech – they are learning an essential and multi-purpose skill. In a world where we are surrounded by technology, all of us now need to be tech-literate. Technology is a core part of every industry and activity today, and the way in which we interact with it has causes and consequences. Children today are ‘digital natives’, with some understanding from an early age of how apps, gadgets, the internet, mobile phones, and social media work. Yet this understanding can often overlook the detail and complexity of what is actually happening ‘behind the scenes’. Coding, the language of technology, is something that we should all start learning from an early age. A knowledge of coding opens up the world of technology, uncovering the complex mechanisms behind even the simplest tools and apps that we make regular use of. In order to achieve what we want to from technology, we need to know how to talk to it and instruct it – by learning its language! The language of computers is different to human language – not a tool for conversation, but purely for instruction. Computers are not intelligent in the way humans are: they can only execute the commands we give them, so any errors, or situations where ‘the computer says no’ always have a human finger behind them. It’s not the computer’s fault – it’s the coder’s! One vital point when teaching coding is that talking to computers requires understanding complex real-life problems, the results we want to achieve, and what input is required in order to solve the problem. Each problem can be broken into smaller pieces, and a thorough process of planning, organising, implementing, and running the program being created is then followed, with the coder looking for possible errors and optimising their solution. If you think about it, this is the same pattern we go through when solving problems in real life – an iterative, creative process balancing many different considerations. By teaching children coding from an early age, we help youngsters to build problem solving skills, and we also foster students’ creative instincts, helping them become the innovative thinkers of the future. Margaret Mead, an American anthropologist, once said: “Children must be taught how to think, not what to think.” This is exactly what coding does: it fosters critical and logical thinking – important skills which we need every day of our lives.

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