My First Ripple – Teaching children how to code

I wanted to change the world, but I didn’t know where to start. So I began by teaching children in an underprivileged community how to code.

Have you ever heard the word monodocency? If you haven’t it’s most likely because it does not exist. The Spanish word `monodocencia` translates to single-teacher instruction. This means that a single teacher is responsible for teaching all subjects to all kids in a class.

In many underprivileged communities in Colombia and the world, this concept is taken one step further. The same teacher is responsible for teaching kids in different grades all the subjects. Can you imagine having kids from grades 6 to 9 sitting in the same room, receiving lectures meant for different audiences, and thriving at it? The kids at the community I taught, however, do just that.

Their teacher, Mr. J, goes above and beyond. Thanks to his dedication and care, these children have been able to explore the world beyond their community.

The first time Mr. J and I talked about this project, we believed the sky was the limit—and it is. Since I’m not located in Colombia, we found a way of getting a video beam connected to a speaker so I could teach through Google Meet calls. Mr. J was able to get some computers loaned during the times of the class. He even secured a donation of two additional laptops from a nearby company. By the time we had our first class, all the 15 kids in the class had access to a laptop during the sessions.

I decided to follow closely CS50’s Introduction to Programming with Scratch. I translated all the material into Spanish and created a Google Classroom page where students could submit their homework and view the resources. We found that they’d rather communicate through our WhatsApp channel, since the Google Classroom platform was intimidating to most of them.

The first class I had 15 extremely shy kids. I asked them about their dreams, and hopes through a poll, and I was moved. In the first week, we discussed sprites, and the next week, functions, events, and values. But even after a few weeks, the children rarely participated. Mr. J often had to call on them to participate, and they rarely had answers to my questions. One week, he decided to step back and simply observe. Kids started to answer my questions, I believe because it made them sad to hear me speaking alone.

Five weeks in, the kids were not only answering my questions, but they actually started asking questions themselves. I was seeing how they became more comfortable with interacting and asking questions in the class. Some of them started taking leadership roles in class. The ‘leader kids’ assumed the role originally occupied by Mr. J. Some of they were always ahead of what I was teaching and I find them brilliant.

Through these classes, we faced many challenges—but we overcame them. Heavy rains sometimes caused internet outages, not all students had access to a computer, and once we even lacked a projector and audio. Yet, despite these challenges, the children always showed up and gave their best effort to learn.

I later found that this year, the children will move on to the next grade. The ones in 6-8th grade will continue to have a place in the school, but the ones in ninth grade will have to transfer, since this school only goes up to grade 9. This means that kids will have to start attending other schools— something some of their families cannot afford. Some of them will get to attend a new school during the week, while others will have to attend Saturday classes instead, and probably start working.

Through this first ripple I found that it is true that all kids have the right to education in Colombia. The kids can probably get enrolled in any public school. But not all of them have the resources to actually attend or get transported to school.

This is why I write this blog. This small project I began, led me to find there are many more problems or obstacles to education than I originally thought. This small project I began, created a small ripple effect within myself. I now want to do more, but I also want to share what’s behind my motivation.

My intention with this blog was to share with you that helping others can be done in many ways. I am not located in that village in Colombia, I did not invest money, I just shared my time and knowledge with others. While I don’t know the full impact of my actions, I am sure I made at least one of those kids curious. Curious to learn, curious to play and curious to program.