Building Capacity in Computer Science Education

Ok. So you're looking for a practical strategy to offer computer science learning opportunities for the students in your community.

Well, you've clicked, or got sent the right video... because YPP's Exploring STEM Literacy learning experiences are designed to: Expand access to CS learning opportunities by offering a radically different on-ramp for students—one that does not require prior mastery in mathematics but instead uses CS as a tool to deepen student mathematical understanding. Equip students with the skills and confidence to teach what they've learned to younger near-peers in their communities, fostering a cycle of mentorship and knowledge-sharing. Provide a proven model that empowers school communities to see their students as resources, and in this case, a resource to integrate CS into the regular school day, ensuring equitable access for all students.

What if I told you that in 2018, a cohort of just twenty-three 9th-grade students learned enough integrated Math + CS to teach 1,500 middle and elementary school students—all in just one school year? Yes, you heard that right. Students teaching students. Students as the teacher. We both know that our current education system is not equipped to meet the growing demand for equitable access to computer science education. The reality is stark: far too many children graduate without experiencing even one semester of computer science, leaving them unprepared for the opportunities and challenges of our information age economy.

I sense a few puzzled looks. You wonder what demand I'm referring to. Let me show you a rather dated document that still serves as an OPEN question and WORK for the country. Convened by members of Congress, large national agencies organized themselves to expound on this approaching demand.

Published in 2007, and revisited in 2010, the Rising Above the Gathering Storm report concluded that the country was at best in a stall and surely in decline in terms of science and innovation.

As Bob Moses helped us see so clearly in his book Radical Equations, we can see how the U.S. got here. He said nations and institutions are now making a global transition from reliance upon technology that primarily organizes physical labor to technologies that directly organize mental labor.

At The Young People's Project (or YPP for short), we agree with this recommendation. Hence why we have been steadily chipping away at math literacy efforts since 1996. But the organizing tradition we inherit from Ella Baker, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, the Algebra Project, and other grassroots efforts who worked to bring about change for those on the bottom teaches us this: a purely top-down strategy that promises to benefit all is a good place to start, but cannot succeed with great strength without a bottom-up strategy relentlessly committed to raising the floor for those of us who are routinely disenfranchised and marginalized.

So we are here, at a critical junction. We prepare children for what is to come, and many believe is already here, or we don’t. The Exploring STEM Literacy integrated Math + CS teaching and learning experiences are an easy set of open-source materials that your school community can pick up today.

The storm is upon us, and the time to act is now. To ensure the students in your community gain access to the critical literacies required for their generation, let us rise above the gathering storm together. Though you may not have the teaching capacity right now to meet the demand outlined in the Rising Above the Gathering Storm report, every community, in every county, is rich with the potential of its children—brilliant resources ready to tackle the challenge of building capacity in computer science education by teaching each other. All it takes to begin is one courageous adult in your community to learn a bit and teach the bit to their students with the intention that they would do the same.

So. What do you think? Shall we rise?