Do primary school boys and girls need to learn to program?

Today it is not an unknown fact, to see how technology has come to school to stay . In fact, technological advances are being applied faster and better in classrooms. Thus, there are groups and movements that promote the idea that current education has to prepare students in these technologies, to be able to live and develop successfully in the society of the future.

A future society in which, probably, there are professions that we do not know yet, but that will demand highly qualified professionals. Thus, robotics and programming are mere examples of the latest additions to teaching, considering that both disciplines correspond to what every student should “know how to do or know” for their future. In addition, in recent years, multiple initiatives have been launched to make programming an accessible subject for the little ones , which can lead us to deeply reflect on the true need for primary school children to have notions of this type, before the beginning of their educational stage in secondary school.

Why teach programming from primary education?

aprender a programar

Perhaps for the elderly this topic can be a real challenge, but the truth is that one reason to teach programming in elementary school is that technology is easy and fun to use for the little ones. The youngest members of a house have already been born in an environment loaded with technology, which allows them to be considered “digital natives”, that is, people who acquire knowledge that facilitates learning from the beginning. An example of how simple it can be for a child to learn programming fundamentals is the Stencyl platform, which allows you to create games using only the basic method of ‘drag and drop’, an action that is developed daily with the use of The computers. Easy to create games, therefore, that can then be run on the web or other platforms such as Android .

Another advantage for the use and learning of new technologies in childhood is precisely their knowledge , since although many of us are familiar with technology, it is possible that this relationship is normally established in a superficial and sometimes also erroneous way. Here is the importance of educating in the correct use of technology.

The world of programming allows children to stop simply ‘using’ technology, to learn to ‘decipher’ it . Thus, skills such as creative thinking, the ability to solve complex problems, collaborative work, self-correction, etc. are developed, which are undoubtedly very useful to face the challenges of the entire school stage.

Last but not least, it must be borne in mind that Spain has always been a couple of steps behind when it comes to educational innovation . If we want to solve this gap, it may be important to know data such as that other countries, such as Estonia, France or the United Kingdom, have already started to implement programming in schools.