Why Should Math Teachers Learn to Code?

The math department at my school is fantastic. We’ve got a rich diversity of experience, with teachers fresh out of education programs, teachers that transitioned back to the classroom from policy work in D.C, teachers with math Ph.Ds, teachers in the midst of their careers, and teachers with 30+ years of classroom experience. On top of that variety, there is a very healthy spirit of collegiality. Needless to say, our department meetings are always full of fruitful conversations that are inclusive of very diverse perspectives. In a department meeting in 2019, we were asked by our chair if there was anything that we felt we ought to be including in our curricula but weren’t. Justin, a particularly insightful and sympathetic colleague, said that he had recently spoken to an alum who had gone on to study a hard science. The alum told Justin that he wished he had more experience with code and the ideas surrounding it. We began to discuss the usefulness of coding in the math classroom and the reality of the growing need for graduates with computational skills. Around this circle of diverse perspectives, a consensus emerged- we should be teaching our kids coding and computational methods. But immediately after that, one after another, we began to discuss our own lack of experience with coding and that the prospect of learning to code was intimidating. Having some experience myself, I resolved to write a few workshops for my colleagues to gently introduce them to coding and computational methods, and at that moment, Code For Your Kids was born. 

– Andrew Hedman, Founder of CodeForYourKids.com

Let’s face it- the world is changing. “21st century skills” has been a buzzword in the education world for years now, and we’ve all heard and read about the growing industrial demand for technology-fluent graduates. At Code For your Kids, we still feel that too few kids have opportunities to learn to code. According to a 2016 study conducted by Google and Gallup, teachers and administrators agree.

While the number and diversity of students that graduate with computational skills is increasing due to recent efforts by a number of organizations, including the College Board, the National Science Foundation, and others, there is still much work to be done. Our hope is that as math teachers, we can begin to see our classrooms as the perfect space to address a few particular aspects of the problem.