LuvToCode and Self Discovery Bootcamp

What future learning environments need is not more mechanization, but more humanization; not more data, but more wisdom; not more objectification, but more subjectification;” - William Rankin

“What we need going forward and what we have always needed is not a group of uncritical students but students equipped to assess and discern and apply what is valid to make things: solutions, connections and resources. This need has been woefully demonstrated in the Corona pandemic, where even some national leaders repeatedly exhibit their inability to distinguish real from fake or struggle to apply even the most basic scientific and economic principles including the lack of empathy towards their citizens.

In the world that emerges out of all this, the focus of education must be on generating whole, competent, humane citizens rather than ‘objective,’ easily digestible data about the distribution of information. No one should care too much about what percentage of students can pass a standardized test if they can’t use their learning to make their lives and the lives of our communities better.” Level Up Village and Inspire Tutors hosted a boot camp to teach young children basic software development skills and to go in depth into topics such as entrepreneurship, purpose of life, puberty, setting life goals and life after school.

We had originally planned to have our second #LuvToCode boot-camp at four different schools, three in Harare and one school in Bulawayo. The pandemic fell upon us and we had to suspend the idea of meeting physically during the April holiday. We managed to run a virtual boot-camp online every day from 9 – 12 noon each day for two weeks. During these sessions’ children would access the course content from the Level Up Village online platform and then we would communicate via WhatsApp as we progressed through each day’s work. It was an amazing experience for everyone as we had never done anything of this nature before. Skype and Zoom meetings have always been used before the lock down and communication using email is a daily routine between offices. In our opinion these forms of collaboration have been working in the industry as it is a formalized setup and either your job or your next salary depends on your availability to respond to emails and to action the given tasks. In this scenario we had invited a whole different generation to formally collaborate on WhatsApp, the social media platform which some would deem informal as compared to emails and Zoom or Skype. To our surprise the students who registered would work seamlessly over the platform using their parents or older siblings’ phones to connect with our team. If we delayed by one minute to say Good Morning on the WhatsApp group, you would find three other messages saying “good morning to you too, what are we doing today?”.

The other surprising factor was that while we were giving instructions through WhatsApp the children would keep up and would be eager to find out the next step. The most famous quote during the boot-camp was “What’s next!” There where a few students who would lag behind and needed extra help. These were assisted by our operations team that would go into their inboxes and take them back on the instructions until they caught up with everyone else. Students would show that we are moving at the same pace by sending a picture of their website and the progress they would have made.

We learnt something from this group of students, as long as we keep them enticed and excited while learning industry related material, these students will eagerly take an active role in deliberating or learning the particular skill presented before them. The students managed to make one paged websites on Covid-19 awareness. These websites were structured using all the html elements to make headers <h1></h1>, paragraphs <p></p> and other elements such as inserting images and videos showing the image of the virus. We had some students coming to class with additional features that they would have learnt and implemented between 12 noon and 9 am the next day!

Our children become annoyed and bored in school because they fail to relate what they learn in class and how it can make our country a better place. We cannot speak for the rest of Africa or the rest of the world but we are pretty sure that some of those elements relate to one or two other countries. As Prof. Amon Murwira said in his YouTube video on education 5.0 that we have children in rural areas who are possibly yet to see a real apple however the alphabet in some schools where those children attend school has them learning about the letter “A” to signify Apple. A fruit which they have never seen before hence the purpose of learning the alphabet is defeated. If the letter “A” was said to signify an Amarula then the children can relate better because those are the wild fruits that they pick on their way back from school every day. There are many other concepts that are key in our education but if the class teacher does not conceptualize and help students see the need to learn about them, we are not doing the children any good.

We also taught our children a couple of science experiments that can be done at home such as putting a paper under water without making it wet and showing the effect of corona virus on washed and unwashed hands. In our next boot-camps, as per request by the children, we will have various classes teaching different elements. Some children requested a cooking school while some requested to learn more about science related work as they aspire to work in the medical field. Our plan for them going forward is that any child who will go through any of these other courses will be able to setup a website or develop applications to solve issues in the area of influence. The students who will go through the cooking school will, at the end of each session sit down on their computers and design and information blog or website that will educate the world on cooking recipes. The emphasis on the tech skills is so that our students improve their digital literacy as it is becoming a fundamental language to learn, the same way English and Mathematics are. 

This series of boot camps is unique in the sense that it is challenging the way education is perceived in most parts of the world, that the smart kids are only seen through passing a standardized test. These boot camps will help children answer questions about life and give children a chance to show case their creativity and share their dreams and aspirations with the world. Level Up Village and Inspire Tutors are creating a platform where we are grooming the next generation of African leaders who are confident in themselves, have a deep sense of self purpose, futuristic thinking, entrepreneurship skills, leadership skills, empathy and understanding of Ubuntu  and a vast number of technological skills.