Children often see things in black and white, right and wrong. This Boolean way of thinking can often be reinforced by teachers and parents who implement a policy of things being either right or wrong with no in-between. The first rule is the adult is always right. This rule applies in schools where mischievous children are made to feel like the odd ones out. Although often we find that life is easier if we conform. Another important rule is that we must always say please and thank you.

As a child we are sometimes able to disprove the logic of this system when we politely remind our parents to say thank you only to be abruptly reminded of rule number one. In time we learn that when and when not to say thank you is a complex problem difficult to describe in a simple set of rules. As a child this can sometimes be confusing; once we start questioning whether something is right or wrong, we are tackling extremely complex and ambiguity problems.

In law something is either legal or illegal there can be no uncertainties. This is reflected in the language which attempts at all cost to avoid ambiguity. If only all decisions were that clear, we all experience fuzziness, ‘maybes’, ‘perhaps’ and ‘occasionally’. Just like ‘fuzzy logic’ often we make decisions on a hunch or a gut feeling. Perhaps this is why we simplify thinking for children, if something is either bad or good it makes that problem easier to solve.

In the early years of thier lives children seem happy with this binary way of dealing with the world. For this reason we decided children would be the best candidates to attempt our first paper based programs. Perhaps they would simplify our protocols? On the 18th June 2002 we attempted to teach a group of 25 primary school children from St Luke’s Primary School, Sway some key processes used within object-orientated programming.

We presented two paper base programs GNP (Group Name Program) and PDP [2] (Paper Dice Program 2). Our first hurdle was to write the programs using basic instructions. Initially, we thought this task would be simpler than writing computer code. But like the simplification of whether something is true or false, writing simple instructions had its complexes and ambiguities.......text tbc soon


The images to our left are taken from a PDP[2] executed by a child at St Luke Primary School.