It’s back to school, with its cocktail of enrolments for school, after-school, sports, music and creative activities…
Here is an activity that should change the way we see pre-teens’ and teenagers’ relationship with computers. Magic Makers* offers workshops and courses inside and outside schools. “Since 2014, Magic Makers has been running computer coding workshops for children and teenagers. Our aim? To give them the keys to the future so that they can make the world they are going to live in their own.” There are other workshops too, such as Les Ingéniaux** in the 13th arrondissement of Paris, or the LudyLab*** in the Vendée. What is interesting is that they sometimes offer to turn existing toys – Lego, for example – into robots. The facilitators also support digital creation projects. For parents who would like to see their children develop a more creative use of computers, and for children who like to “tinker” with their toys, it is a superb initiative.
We slightly regret the price of the activities (30 euros per workshop, 200 euros for a holiday course, 60 euros per month for a weekly activity) and the sometimes “you have to prepare children for the future” discourse, which can ride the wave of “ever more extra lessons” for children who have to build a good school record. Coding is a skill that should be taught to everyone. Yet it is not covered in primary and lower-secondary school curricula. These parallel, fee-paying courses risk worsening social inequalities in mastery of digital tools. However, they pave the way for future teaching of coding. It is also possible that future primary and secondary teachers trained in these skills, for example during these workshops, will include them in their teaching programmes.
However, as a one-off workshop, it may be a good way of encouraging the use of computers and consoles for something other than watching videos or playing online games, while appealing to children’s and teenagers’ tastes and encouraging sharing and dialogue within the family! First, parents do not always feel capable of supporting pre-teens in creative computer activities such as photo retouching, stop-motion or video game coding. Second, coding is indeed a useful skill for the future. Finally, creating programs yourself, and above all robots, is the best way to understand, criticise and master the decision-making algorithms and machines that we may be asked to accept in the future.
***https://www.ludylab.fr/le-ludylab/
Constance Prieur is a public health intern in Île-de-France, trained in psychiatry, management and health economics.
