Whether children should learn programming languages has sparked a heated debate in society. While many people claim that these so-called languages are irrelevant to their daily lives, I personally believe that coding should be taught in every school because of its wide range of benefits and implications.
Naysayers of coding may argue that such an activity does not hold any relevance to people’s lives. Because programming ‘merely’ allows humans to communicate with computers, it might distract people from becoming social beings.
They might then assert that kids should invest their precious time in other interactive activities, like learning a foreign language, which allows bilinguals to chat with international tourists, playing sports, which allows athletes to create invaluable experiences with their teammates, and scrolling through social media such as Instagram, Linked In, and Twitter, which allows users to connect with people with similar interests. Different from coding, these activities generally widen children’s networks and develop their communication skills.
The Surprising Benefits of Coding
From creating animations, games, to websites, coding has various practical benefits, especially for youngsters.
1. Children Can Develop Important Life Skills
Whether complete beginners or experienced programmers, children are able to learn salient life skills, like creativity, cleanliness, and persistence, through such an activity.
For instance, coding games requires young coders to think outside the box and visualize algorithms and game characters; developing websites challenges their neatness and design skills; and managing databases improves their persistence, patience, and analytical abilities. Learning these important skills at a young age will undoubtedly give youngsters a great boost as they enter the professional world.
2. Coding Has a Wide Range of Implications
In addition to providing life values, programming also has many implications. From games, videos, to applications, software developed with code has the potential to help make life convenient in many aspects.
Thanks to social platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube, entertainment can be enjoyed from the comfort of people’s phones. With the advent of messaging apps such as WhatsApp, Line, and Discord, chats can be delivered quickly and efficiently; and because of productivity tools like Google Docs, Google Sheets, and Google Calendar, work effectiveness has improved drastically. Behind these live-changing apps, interestingly, are incredible programmers who dreamt about bringing a positive impact to the world.
If students are taught coding early in life, they will not only be able to smoothly build their own advanced programs but also independently overcome potential technical difficulties.
Conclusion
Granted, children may or may not pursue a career related to programming later in their future.
However, because such knowledge brings significant advantages for their personal development and opens unlimited opportunities for themselves, it is high time every child across the globe studied computer programming.