To Code or Not to Code
Did you hear your neighborhood aunty lamenting over how her child is too old to start learning to code, even though he is basically a toddler?
A somewhat exaggerated scenario perhaps, but this is exactly the kind of situation WhiteHat junior came out with in a set of advertisements that showcased a young boy, Chintu, learning to code using WhiteHat Jr, and creating a new app that his parents seemed very excited to market.
While the idea of making kids learn the basics of computer science from earlier years has mostly been met with anger at not allowing kids to be kids, we might also have to look at this from a pragmatic, albeit harsher, view, where a person who learned how to code during childhood finds it far easier to bag a job later in life. But where does reality meet preserving one’s childhood? Is this a question about business strategies or one that makes us take a hard look at our education system?
Learning to code certainly is an extremely useful tool for those who genuinely want to get into the tech industry, but the extent to which one gets swayed simply because of the monetary success of the same, should not be a motivating factor in making it a part of our education curriculum. Now, this does not mean coding, or the basics of it at least, shouldn’t be included in lower classes at all.
Many of my friends in college often complain about their decision to not take computer science after the 10th grade, which resulted in them not having any base in computer science at all, something which is needed in almost all engineering fields. This is, ironically, alongside another set of people who suffered through years of subjects like history or geography, often finding this knowledge they learned completely unnecessary once they started higher studies or their jobs.
Adding the basics of computer science into the curriculum earlier on in school might be something a tech-oriented world requires, but certainly not to the extent White Hat Jr markets it to be. Another problem that WhiteHat’s advertising strategy raises, which resonates a little too much in our society, is that Chintu’s parents seem to be very happy that their son is making money, while no importance is given whatsoever for his genuine learning or interest in the subjects. This is certainly not a good message to be putting out into the world, but doesn’t it ring a little too close to home?
Conservative parents force their child into a stream of study or career choice that the child has zero interest in, simply for the monetary benefits of said job, or for the societal “normalcy’’ they seem to provide.
Does this sound familiar? Yes, it’s something I’ve heard a little too many times as well.
If you want some perspective about this issue, this article may help:
You have to applaud White Hat’s marketing strategy though, it sees right through to the core of our society and its educational beliefs, and maybe our system put out so evidently and obviously was exactly what we needed to realize that there is something wrong with it. If Chintu’s parents had been this excited at their son’s engineering feats or medical knowledge at such a young age, would we still have found it problematic?
Putting aside, you know, the slow death of our youth in a cycle that destroy our dreams and hopes and teaches us to be the opposite of creative and also kills us inside, (oops went a bit dark there), if we take the issue of introducing coding earlier onto the academic curriculum, we could actually find a number of pros to children being exposed to a field that is somewhat necessary in today’s world. The very basics of coding involve more logic than anything else, and while I think the lower kindergarten is a little too early to start, kids having a little programming experience from their high school years might not be the worst idea (hides from all the literary tomatoes thrown at me).
Students who hope to do higher studies or have careers in computer science or computer engineering, often require knowledge on how computer logic works, and learning about the same, at least on a surface level, from high school years can be extremely effective. Most curriculums already have basic HTML and computer science as a secondary subject, but not a lot of importance is given to the same. This means that when students take up streams like CS in 11th and 12th grade or choose engineering subjects on a college level, they have very little idea of what they are actually signing up for.
Although this isn’t an excuse to start sending your toddlers to coding classes from the time they can walk. Any effective learning requires an interest in the subjects themselves, and one of the reasons why you see college students looking like they are zombies (cue sad bgm) might just be because there is very little happiness they derive from their respective majors.
This is where WhiteHat’s advertisements get us understandably upset. Sure, sending our teenagers to coaching classes and colleges against their will is totally fine, but you can’t do that to a kid!
The whole situation does make one sit up and think about our country’s standards of education and the extent to which it can go. Of course, hoping for a complete shift in this problem will need a drastic change in the way people think. Whether having a safe and secure future is more important than pursuing something you might be passionate about is a personal choice that takes into account a number of variables around us. But that should, at the end of the day, be a decision for a student to make themselves, rather than to have it forced on them.
Changing the mindsets of the people around us in this regard might be something that is going to take some time, but hopefully, the idea of pursuing subjects and careers we actually like will stop being an urban myth one day and will have more to do with personal preferences rather than societal expectations.
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