Would you say the same about math or reading?
Math is something that everyone who can do math, thinks is essential. Unlike reading though there's a continum of skills from iteracy, to arithmetic, to calculus and so on. Very few people know the square root of -1 or use it once a year.
Of course you meant "math" as in basic arithmetic. And sure life is easier with that than without it. But lots of kids go through life with very rudimentary math skills. They function just fine.
Does good reading Writing and math skills open doors? Sure it does. Does knowledge of Word or Excel or Windows or Quickbooks open doors? Sure. Does knowing how to cook a meal, feed others, open doors? Sure. There are a million ways to add value to society. Coding is immensely valuable to those who can do it well. But it's not foundational like reading or writing.
Reading and (basic) writing was always foundational. You can go back to ancient Egypt and there are merchants who have mastered a simplified form of hieroglyphs. They weren't doing maths any more sophisticated than adding and subtracting small numbers, but they needed to know writing.
What is foundational changes over time and depends on what skills you are trying to build. Given math and reading have only become foundational recently, there is no reason to think the skills considered to be foundational won't continue to evolve.
The utopian aim of technology is all about offloading burdensome work so we can focus more on the things we enjoy. If reading is a burden to someone, why not let them use a TTS? If long division is a burden, why not let them use a pocket calculator? They’ll probably learn enough to get by even if they never get to the point of reading Dostoevsky by sight.
Lest you say, “well but those skills are essential!”, humans needed food to survive before we needed mathematics or written language, yet we’ve been been OK outsourcing farming for at least a century because we’ve experienced how it frees us up to pursue other things. And, to that end, we’ll probably be facing some pretty extreme civilizational crisis if we get to the point that someone without basic maths skills can’t find a calculator.
If your kid rolls their eyes and says "no math/reading for me thanks", you don't just accept it and figure they'll find what they love - you figure some way to make them learn and it's at least a few months of hard work for a kid(and parent) to sort of get escape velocity .
It's possible that programming will end up in the same spot.
We all "program" computers every day (when you turn on a microwave, when you talk to Alexa, when you do a budget in Excel, or write a Doc in Word.)
Coding is not an essential skill. It's clearly a useful skill, but pretty much no-one in my
We all "program" computers every day (when you turn on a microwave, when you talk to Alexa, when you do a budget in Excel, or write a Doc in Word.)
Coding is not an essential skill. It's clearly a useful skill, its a valuable skill, but pretty much no-one in my real life can code. And from what I've learned teaching others most people -can't- code, regardless of education.
I fly to place all the time, but I outsource the piloting. Programmers both argue that coding should be learnt by everyone, and at the same time most that it's getting easier (and hence less valuable) to do it.
It is not comparable.