I hear this question from some parents. Even more worrisome, I see it in the actions of others who hold it as a tacit belief. “My son is interested in programming, but he is only 12. Why not wait a few years before encouraging him down that path?”
Just like saving for retirement, now is the time to start. Delaying just a couple years can cause widely different results. It comes down to some underlying assumptions being made about the next few years.
Do Not Needlessly Delay
There will never be a perfect time to learn programming (or do anything for that matter), but waiting is likely to only make things worse. Each year in school the classes become more rigorous, demanding more time and attention after school. High school baseball takes more time than little league baseball – and you can substitute the word “baseball” for any activity. With each passing year it becomes more difficult to add a new activity.
Peer pressure is difficult to understand, but shouldn’t be ignored. Teenagers care about what their friends are doing and what is cool. You might believe your student isn’t susceptible, but you will likely agree with this statement: your student is more likely to feel peer pressure at 16 than 12. This is a particularly important factor for girls, where programming might be less understood by peers and anything nerdy is avoided. In middle and high school special girls-only programs are necessary because of stereotypes but in elementary school the stereotypes have not yet set in.
A parent’s opinion is also something that loses power. In elementary school if you say something is interesting that’s a good thing. By the time they get to high school if you think it’s cool then it’s something to be avoided at all costs.
There is an assumption made about kids’ curiosity. “If my son is really interested in programming, he will still be interested in a couple years.” There is a window where a student’s curiosity is at its peak and also when a parent’s encouragement is most effective. Take a close look at these two windows and you are likely to find they won’t be open forever.
Start Early
This doesn’t even mention the incredible benefits to starting earlier – the chance for compounding knowledge and the time to gain a deep understanding. Kids programming is more accessible than ever, with great tools and languages. You can get started with just an hour of programming a week!
I often write about how computer programming is not being taught in schools, making it the responsibility of parents to take charge. While one hour a week makes a big difference, many schools do one hour a year meaning that students never progress beyond the first lesson. This is unfortunately the current reality in the United States, but the rest of the world is not necessarily in the same boat. Some countries have already transformed their education system to include computer science and some already have! Israel and South Korea are probably in the lead for kids’ computer science education.
There are a large number of programs trying to help computer science education succeed in the United States and we are moving in the right direction. Sadly it is a slow process as we need to train teachers, develop curriculum, and update standards before we can teach students.
It’s Not One Size Fits All
For simplicity’s sake, adults clump children together by age and set expectations of what a student of a given age should be able to accomplish. “He reads at a 5th grade level.” But do expectations limit the potential growth of students that have the potential to far exceed these expectations?
Our set expectations for the common subjects may be destructive, but hard to avoid. Reading, writing, and arithmetic have been taught the same way for years. But creating, science, and computers have potential to be subjects that do not limit a student according to adult expectations.
When kids don’t know the “limitations” of what they should be able to accomplish they can build amazing things. Right now I am working with a 7 year-old whose biggest challenge is consistent spelling. He can write complex code with data structures but even though our variable names don’t need to be spelled correctly, we do need to spell them the same way every time. My little brother while playing in Java at 8 years-old discovered that a function can call itself (recursion) and he was sad to find out that he wasn’t the first to try this.
Computer programming is an excellent way to let your child learn at his or her own pace with no boundaries. Many kids have a natural curiosity and excitement in bringing their ideas to life on a computer screen. There aren’t set levels of what a 10 year-old should be able to accomplish. And there is almost no limit to how much they can learn.
Where We Come In
We believe that summer camps and brief introductions through the many nonprofits are not enough. This is the idea behind why Breakout Mentors was started. There are many students that are interested in learning more, and have nowhere to go to achieve this. We want to provide the very best learning experience for those students that enjoy computers and have the most to gain with a long-term focus.
Most Breakout Mentors students start when they are 10 to 12 years old. The 1-on-1 environment allows them to continuously progress and we are able to support them from beginner to competitive programming and machine learning. Everyone can learn to program just like everyone can learn to swim when they are young and unafraid.
Photo: Christian
