Learn to Program - Starting with Scratch and Minecraft

Last week, my sixth-grade son and his classmates were asked by their science teacher to design a program in Scratch (a beginning programming language developed by MIT) that depicted the water cycle. When he was in the fourth grade, I introduced my son to Scratch, and he has played around with it occasionally over the past two years. He and his classmates had fun with the project, and even those who were totally unfamiliar with it learned some basics of programming.

Yesterday, my son downloaded a new "protocol" into Minecraft. Like many boys his age, Minecraft has become the first thing that he turns to on the weekends.  Along with playing on Minecraft with other folks, my son is in the process of creating his own city that is really pretty complex.  While he was engaged in his city planning, I asked him if he had been able to transfer any skills from his extensive Minecraft experience to Scratch.   Here is his off-the-top-of-his-head response, without looking up from his laptop:

• 3-D modeling
• coordinate grids 
• I can go in and change the code a little to make it do what I want. 

I don’t think anyone would consider my son a computer geek.  He plays sports after school; he practices piano; he has sleep-overs with friends, he reads the Sunday comics; he occasionally washes his mom's car; he eats constantly; and he programs a little.  In the future, my son may decide to study and learn more sophisticated programming, or he may not. The important thing is that he knows that he can, and coding is not some mysterious operation that only geniuses can accomplish. He can do it; anyone can do it; everyone should.