Teaching kids to code by playing (Școala Altfel)
The Ministry of National Education started a program called ”Să știi mai multe, să fii mai bun!” (Know more, be better — Școala Altfel) and it is organized in each learning unit, in a week of the second semester with a special schedule that includes only activities with non-formal character. It involved both teachers and students in extracurricular, interesting activities in order to highlight their talent, their after schools pursuits and their field of competency in more diverse domains.
In previous years, I’ve organized together with Mozilla România and OSOM some Webmaker session in the schools from Aiud and Ocna Mureș. This year I did not get the chance to prepare anything and I felt bad to lose such an opportunity. But luckily, my sadness did not last long. Yay! At the beginning of April, I saw online that a certain organization — Cartea Daliei — organizes during the week activities in several schools in Cluj-Napoca teaching the little ones math and programming through games on tablets. So I have subscribed to their event as a volunteer mentor. They were nice enough to write me back to confirm my availability and to tell me more about their organization.
During the weekend before the Școala Altfel week I was in Berlin, so I have returned only Monday morning — fact that made me lose the first day but I made a promise to attend all the next days.
Tuesday — Iuliu Hațeganu School— 4th grade
The schedule for Tuesday was from 10 to 12 — so I got early to the office to be able to do some work before, to add a leave request and get back in Mănăștur in time. Missing the weekend before when the people from Cartea Daliei Organized a training for the volunteers I felt a bit lost at the beginning, not knowing what to do exactly. But, while Andrei explained to the kids a bit about programming I took a tablet and started the game — it was one from Hour of Code platform and they had to program Angry Birds through simple commands — go straight ahead, go left, repeat x times etc.
The kids were wonderful! I must admit I was expecting it to be harder but it seems they were familiar with tablets or smartphones, having one with them or at home and now they learned how to program their games!
Wednesday, Thursday, Friday — Emil Isac and Nicolae Iorga Schools — o -2nd grade classes
In the next days , the schedule was from 8 to 10 and we visited smaller children being in the preparing class, first or second grade. Due to this, we changed the game — using, this time, LightBot — an app in which you had to program a robot to light on some squares. My groups had 3 to 4 children. Being with younger kids, it was a bit harder — they needed more indications and more attention. The lucky part was to have enough tablets so each child would have one of its own. The unlucky part was that they were all asking for help in the same time.
What I liked about this week:
- Kids’ energy! They were so enthusiastic about playing with the tablets, about learning games but also about sharing some small things from their lifes — like how they like to play at home, what they had visited the day before etc.
- Some of the teachers — they successfully got the kids attention using nice words and small games.
- Being there in the morning! In this way, I could get late in the office after the classes took place. But on the less bright side — I was leaving the office late, around 8 in the evening. Well deserved sacrifice, though!
- Being able to convince the kids to help each other — when one was behind I would ask a kid that finished that level to help the first one till I took care of the rest of the group.
Some concerns during the week:
- I did not like the tone some of the teachers used to get the kids’ attention. Even I got scared a couple of times.
- I felt that the kids attitude face to their colleagues was so competitive! Constantly they would look at what level were the others — and even If I said above that I got them into helping each other — that went into ruins at the end of the class when others would come and say — “You are only at that level? Passed that long time ago“
- The differences in access tolearning resources — Moise Guran has an interview on this in one of the episodes of ”Clubul celor care muncesc în România”, ep.26 about Ramona and Teach for Romania)
I got full of positive energy after each session of Școala Altfel and I will participate again for sure!
This program — Școala Altfel — took place between 18th and 22nd of April 2016. But for those at Cartea Daliei, Scoala Altfel continues even this month and in June due to the requests received.
I want to give a big shout out and thanks to the people from Cartea Daliei for giving me this great opportunity to teach kids about coding!
PS: The Romanian version can be read here.
