Getting kids excited about science with isiZulu code
• CodeMakers founder started doing coding in a non-English language to teach children computer basics
In a crowded classroom at a school in a poor community in Durban, a group of children are swarming around a computer, creating a game using a coding language translated into isiZulu.
Over the past year, a nonprofit organisation, CodeMakers, has conducted computer classes for about 500 Durban children, teaching 400 the rudiments of computer coding. The idea is not to turn out experts in software development, but to teach them how to think, learn and solve problems.
“Learning coding is about problem solving, honing logic, confidence-boosting and using a computer to create — all things that these kids don’t get enough of,” says CodeMakers founder Justin Yarrow.
If some of the children do become coders, that’s a bonus.
US-born, Yarrow trained as a scientist and came to SA 10 years ago to work at clinics helping them bring more HIVpositive patients into the system. He met many poor families with children attending schools that failed to teach them the skills needed to achieve a better life than their parents.
“I realised that the interest I had in science had drawn me into that career and a lot of kids in SA don’t get that hands-on joy and excitement of learning and discovering something new. That happens in well-resourced schools and in the rest of the world, but low-resourced schools don’t have anything. The way they are learning is… someone writes on a board and they copy it onto paper,” he says.
Yarrow is currently working at Bhekaphambili Primary in Lamontville, teaching about 40 children twice a week in a class equipped with 15 computers. The teaching is done during their Life Orientation lessons.
At Umkhumbane Secondary in Cato Manor, he opens a computer room with 16 laptops during the breaks. “They have an hour for break and rather than spend time with their friends hanging out in the quadrangle, they come in and work with animation or draw and make a game,” he says.
The software they use is Scratch, developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as the first software built to teach children how to code. Yarrow’s team translated it into isiZulu, the first time it has been made available in an official language other than English.
“Doing Scratch computer coding is very creative and for kids with curiosity, it gets them to approach problems from a point of logic,” Yarrow says.
“It also gets kids to express themselves and letting their stories be told is incredibly important. A lot of the kids don’t get that recognition and don’t feel like they can be creators of technology,” he says.
One of the goals is to help the students recognise the power of computers. Many South African children leave school without ever using a computer.
When Yarrow set up CodeMakers, he met the education authorities to discuss running computer classes in Durban schools. They were keen, he says, but the schools were less enthusiastic.
“I was hoping that teachers would be excited, but schools are so focused on what the education department tells them to focus on that it’s hard for them to look at something that’s not in the curriculum. To some extent, I understand that, but it’s missing the bigger picture,” he says.
Efforts to train existing teachers to run computer classes largely failed because they were already overburdened.
Someone from CodeMakers has to give the lessons and its resources are limited.
“Schools need to recognise that computer programming is being taught to children around the world, so other kids are growing up with an advantage in their ability to think and solve problems, as well as having the potential of many different careers,” Yarrow says.
“But whenever you go into a school and do science-related work, you understand that kids here are not getting all that they need. I’ve had kids who graduated through matric come to me and say they’ve never used a computer and they recognise that it’s a problem.”
After a few lessons with Scratch, they are able to produce animations telling stories in their own words and their own language. “They get these huge grins on their faces and they come back for more,” he says.
Yarrow is now working with eThekwini’s library authority to arrange classes at libraries or community centres instead. That would help CodeMakers reach the kids who are particularly enthusiastic, rather than working with large classes where many have no interest. CodeMakers has already run several sessions at libraries where some children sat for eight hours learning to code. “That’s their hunger and excitement and you see the lightbulb going on. There are amazingly creative young learners who want to do this.”
If the children ask questions about how technology, or an app on a cellphone works, they might go on to ask how a machine or their society works, Yarrow believes.
Most of the youngsters the charity works with have little idea about the careers that may be open to them, or have never been encouraged to aim high. So CodeMakers is also creating a portfolio of video clips featuring successful young people talking about how they got into a career in the sciences.
Yarrow wants to produce more of these career-inspiring videos and is hoping companies will put forward their software developers and engineers as potential role models.
LEARNING CODING IS ABOUT … USING A COMPUTER TO CREATE — THINGS THAT THE KIDS DON’T GET ENOUGH OF