Girls Who Code: What Does CS Ed Week Have To Do With Joy?

By Kate O'Brian, Lower School Technology Innovation Specialist & STEM Teacher

December 2024 marks my third year hosting the Hour of Code during CS Ed Week (Computer Science Education Week) in my Lower School STEM classes, and this international coding event comes as an unexpected relief for me in an otherwise tumultuous season of global change. In past years, I’ve wondered why such an important initiative got planted smack-dab in the middle of the most chaotic stretch of our year, but I’ve come to appreciate it as a gift. Hosting the Hour of Code in my classroom actually affords me a little space (and grace!) to turn the tables and encourage my students to teach me something. 

Here’s the thing—amidst the flurry of holiday activity and squeezing in just one more lesson before the break is upon us, it’s easy for me to forget that anticipation and joy are at the heart of this season. So much rhetoric around education has to do with catching up, competing, or out-performing others, although I’ve never met a student who was more sustainably motivated by fear than by excitement or curiosity. Even CS Ed Week, “an annual call to action to inspire K-12 students to learn computer science, advocate for equity in computer science education, and celebrate the contributions of students, teachers, and partners to the field,” was established on the panicked premise that too few students were enrolling in computer science studies in the United States. With every passing year, innovators push out more apps, websites, and toys promising to turn kids into coders fast and forever assuage our collective fears of falling behind. 

But if I’m honest, I don’t teach computer science to my Lower Schoolers because our country needs to catch up, or because they’ll one day save the world, or even because they need to keep pace with the ever-expanding scope of emerging technologies. As a girls’ school educator, an integral part of my role is to break down biases around the field of computer science, since I know girls see them in their lives outside my classroom. But I also know that the pressure to bridge that gap can feel insurmountable, and no girl can do it alone. That's what makes teaching in a girls' school unique; our students won't have to wonder who is welcome in computer science, because they’ll witness their peers programming every year and learn in an environment where their ability—and belonging—is never in question. 

When I asked my fourth graders why they code, they had this to say:

“Coding gets you to start being creative” (Anna, 4th Grade) .

“Coding with songs and dances lets you express yourself” (Liana, 4th Grade). 

“Coding is super fun! When you code, it’s one more skill you know how to do, on top of everything else. You get to tell people you’re a coder” (Charlotte, 4th Grade).

“When you code, you tell stories, and you can even code animations. Telling stories connects you with others, even across the world” (Jamila, 4th Grade).

And that’s just it. These themes of creativity, self-expression, enjoyment, identity, and connection are exactly what I strive to foster in STEM. I teach CS because it gives my girls joy more than anything else. I want my students to learn more than just the programming skills that will supercharge their careers and creativity one day. More vitally, I want them to discover for themselves that learning and joy can be fundamentally intertwined. 

When I stepped into the hall to greet my first grade girls with a Dash robot in hand this Tuesday, their joy was so tangible that their teacher Mrs. Kucharczuk lamented that she hadn’t gotten the response on camera. I mean, screaming, jumping, cheering —the first graders sure know how to celebrate! And that’s the beauty of it, really; children are hard-wired with this superpower that many adults have lost touch with. Their ability to tap into deep wells of emotion is unparalleled, and their enchantment with the everyday is undeniably a strength. It’s impossible not to marvel at how readily my students indulge their sense of wonder every day, and wonder to myself where else we can carve out space for this kind of joyful exploration in our schools. During CS Ed Week, these enchanted moments where learning meets play abound. 

So each December, my students teach me how to be a joyful learner again and again, but this lesson always arrives in a different package. While I plan out our “work” for the month with care—Cubetto sets for junior kindergarten and kindergarten, Dash & Blockly for first and second grade, and CoSpaces for third and fourth grade—I leave room for joyful play, and my students never fail to surprise me. Just this morning, my Kindergarteners drew the delightful connection between a sequence in code and instructions for the elves in Santa’s workshop, which would’ve been lost on me had I planned to tell them what it meant instead of allowing them to discover that knowledge. 

I’ve written on the power of CS education for elementary school students in past years, but this year I’m empowered by the great enthusiasm that Stuart girls bring to CS Ed Week and beyond. It’s a great privilege to open my mind to their fresh perspectives this December, and I can’t wait to witness their coding discoveries!