Today I went to Leah Buechley’s Beautiful, Meaningful Computation talk. Growing up, I was an artist before I was a programmer, so I was really looking forward to hearing what Dr. Buechley had to say about the intersection of the two. And I want to be a teacher, which made me even more interested. She discussed the importance of merging computing, engineering, and the arts in order to increase student engagement. Introducing grade school students to computing in the right way will increase engagement and success, while empowering them to find new ways of self expression. You should have been there, but you would have had to stand. Dr. Buechley filled every seat! That’s when I knew I was walking into something unrepeatable.

When I took my computer science classes, I didn’t find myself feeling particularly artistic while toiling over infinite loops and segmentation faults. However, Dr. Buechley argued that kids in grades K-12 should be learning computer programming through an artistic lens to improve understanding while still allowing the students to express their identities in an artistic way. One of the more memorable questions she asked the audience how important art was to our own self-expression when we were angsty teenagers. At least for me, the answer is that art was crucial. Dr. Buechley proposed that we teach students to produce art, fabricate clothing, jewelry, tableware, and other expressive objects with computation. All of those are wonderful opportunities to connect students’ identities and interests to computation. Students will be more engaged if they feel as though the material they are learning is relevant, and that their teachers expect them to succeed. Unfortunately from an educator’s standpoint, implementation of her dream might take longer than wanted, but I think more schools need to realize Dr. Buechley’s vision. Students deserve to learn practical computing skills and learn a powerful way to express themselves as they are navigating grade school.

Dr. Buechley’s contagious enthusiasm and motivation to celebrate the connection between computation and art motivates me to use my budding programming skills to express my creative mind. Since computer science and analytical thinking is undeniably creative, Dr. Buechley’s talk made me realize that I don’t have to say goodbye to artistic expression in order to strengthen my coding skills. I hope classrooms begin to look a little bit more like the future Dr. Buechley talked about in Beautiful, Meaningful Computation and students feel more inspired too!