Reading 14

            I’m just not sure whether or not coding is the new literacy. It’s true, like the article said, that right now its power is concentrated in a few hands, like old-timey scribes, and it does seem logical and democratic that it would and should eventually filter down into everyone, so it’s no longer this mystical power and instead it’s just like reading and everyone’s expected to do it. The devices that are controlled by code are so ubiquitous, and they affect everyone’s lives so radically that it does make sense for everyone to have at least a general idea about what’s going on. There is something to be said about the comment where not every needs to code like not everyone needs to learn how to plumb… it’s true that it is a labour-intensive, esoteric skill when you can do it well and be paid to do it. But also, everyone should be able to fix a clogged toilet. Everyone owns a plunger and handles the small plumbing details on their own. I liked the line about how not ever cook is some amazing chef, not everyone who can write is Jane Austen, but knowing how to scramble an egg or write an email makes your life easier. Especially since there are a lot of important ethical decisions about all these realms of computing taking over our lives that are coming due now and that will continue to arrive the next few years, I think it is important that people have some background in what coding is and how it really works. And why we do it at all. That might be the most important. I do think the emphasis should be on the computational thinking aspect, though, like the first article mentioned. Who on earth needs Java syntax. Who teaches language by sitting three year olds down and explaining complex punctuation structure. Teach people the thought behind how all this works, and what would be most useful for them to know, the ideas and the concepts and some basic language skills, the same way you teach relevant words to a child, like “mommy” and “food” and “please”.

            The way it’s currently set up, I’d say that no, not everyone should be required to take a coding class. In some new world, or if everyone had access to the 12-week school for teachers that they were talking about where they spend a lot of time on concepts and “why”, I think that would be useful. I just feel like it’s weird and kinda wrong to have the vast majority of society using these devices when how they work is a black box. Maybe it is like everybody using an old-timey census, putting X next to some line that they don’t understand, and it needs to change.

            The arguments for introducing everyone is that code is everyone, software is eating the world, and that it’s the new literacy, everyone should get on board. The big argument against that I’ve always heard is that they’re not going to need this in their lives ever. My parents still complain about the coding class they had to take in high school—they did the turtle game that the Vietnamese children were playing! They always talk about how it was so useless, making the turtle spin and how they were like I will never have to use this knowledge. I just think if it’s going to be effective it has to be so much more about the computational thinking aspect than just about making a turtle go because the teacher said to. Something along the lines of “just so you know what’s going on in the world, so you can make more well-informed technology decisions and maybe sort of see how these concepts apply to all the apps and tech you use every day, let’s crash course you through how programmers solve problems, what their biggest tools are, how they think and solve and communicate. Because these problem-solving skills aren’t inapplicable to your life as a doctor, lawyer, housewife”.

            Schools are going to face huge challenges. It’ll be expensive. They’ll have to hire or train CS teachers, and they can’t keep CS teachers—if they’re good, they return to industry more likely than not within a few years. Also, schools already have curriculums, and they’re going to have to decide what takes priority and what to cut, which I don’t think anyone mentioned. Is CS more important than geography? What do we squeeze out for this class? I think in some young grade a computational thinking course, exposing kids to computers and how they think and the problem-solving steps that go along with that, should be a requirement. I want it to be on top of existing ones, but I don’t know how feasible that is. If anyone’s still doing script in the second grade, maybe it replaces that. I’m biased and not really a cursive person, though, so maybe not. After that one class, it could start being an elective or a highly-encouraged one. And then make another required class in high school. Just gives kids something where they have to sit down and learn a couple things about this ubiquitous tech. Logic might also be a good component to have in that class. In high school some legit programming might not be a bad idea, but please don’t hammer syntax and keep focusing on ideas and problem solving.

            Anyone can learn to program. Anyone can learn to read. I think some people have more of knack for it (some people learn to read earlier), but if you hammered it home the way we hit children over the head with reading, everyone could get it. I don’t think everyone needs to be able to build web-based client-server apps with relational-database components, but I think people should know enough turtle-spinning to get loops, enough logic to get Boolean, enough math to get binary. I don’t want anyone to be lost in this increasingly tech society.