Another school year is coming to a close. The vast majority of elementary and middle school students don’t do any programming in class, especially in public schools. The local Los Altos school district is different. Every 6th grade student learns Scratch. They recently had a showcase and participation optional coding competition – everyone was blown away by the quality and diversity of projects.
The Scratch teacher Sheena Vaidyanathan wrote an excelent article about the experience, When Every Sixth Grader Learns to Code. My favorite part of the article are the answers from an anonymous student survey. One of the questions was “what would you tell someone to convince them to learn to code?” Here are some inspiring responses:
I would tell someone that coding is type of art. There are no bounds to your creativity and you can create anything you want, it can be easy or hard. And the most important thing is to always have fun.
I really think coding is useful, and even fun. Coding uses all that I have learned in math, and applies it to the real world. Coding also teaches me that your first work isn’t always the best.
You should try coding! It’s really fun, but I’m not promising that it’s easy. It’s really useful and it teaches you patience.
If your student participated in the CSTEM program and would like to keep learning more, Breakout Mentors can help. If your student’s school doesn’t offer any programming, contact us to learn how you can get started today.