Every student in Ontario should learn to code beginning in junior kindergarten. 

Let me tell you why: 

1. It develops logic skills which strengthens almost every area of study including mathematics, science, and literature. 

2. It fosters creativity and strengthens computational skills by moving the student from a passive consumer of technology to an author and creator. 

3. Coding provides an additional platform for kinesthetic learners to explore abstract concepts in a visual way. 

4. Adding coding to the Ontario curriculum is an important step towards solving the gender disparity in the field of technology.  According to figures released in 2015 just 16% of Facebook's tech staff and 18% of Google's are women. 

5. There is a skills shortage in technology and computer science.  In a labour market study funded by the Canadian government it found that between 2015-2019 the immediate shortage for programmers was 182,000, on Western University's computer science web page it has a chart which shows computer science significantly outpacing any other field of science in terms of demand, and according to the US Bureau of Labor the US will be facing a 1 million person job shortage in the next ten years if nothing is done.

6. Jurisdictions outside of Ontario have weighed the evidence and are acting to fill the demand knowing that their students will have an upper hand in finding tech related employment and that tech companies are more likely to locate to areas where there is tech talent.  Outside of Canada the United Kingdom and Australia have added coding to the curriculum.  Within Canada, British Columbia and Nova Scotia are doing the same.  Ontario must act now. 

7. Adding coding to the Ontario curriculum is common-sense.  Whether we like it or not, coding is all around us.  Almost anything that requires a plug or battery uses code.  Do you use a debit card, a microwave, or a car?  The technology we have come to love and rely on only works because of coders and the computational thinking principles they rely on.

8. Faculties of Educations are teaching teachers how to teach coding now because they know that coding improves classroom instruction and is essential to the lives of our kids who are faced with living in a technological world. Coding in many ways has become the world language stitching together cultures and transcending borders.

9. The tech community agrees that coding should be taught in school starting in kindergarten.  Founder of Campus Creative, William Komer, who first learned coding at St. Thomas Aquinas High School has this to say about coding: "Math is essential to all of the sciences as a critical tool.  Coding is closely related to math, and is arguably the largest breakthrough in scientific tools."

10.  Students support coding in the elementary curriculum.  One student commented on the gender disparity: "Computer sciences may be intimidating to girls as it is a primarily male dominated field but if we introduce it early and encourage girls to work with coding early on maybe we can tip the scales to be equal." 

Whether you want to make money or change the world coding is an empowering skill to learn.   To be able to come up with an idea, see it in your hands, and then with the push of a button put it in the hands of everyone else is miraculous.   Just imagine creating something as a homework assignment and the next day it is an essential part of the lives of others around the world.  Coding is the key to technological creativity, the power to move from technological bystander to a technological creator, and an essential skill that our kids in Ontario must study and learn.