Comment by parpfish | Hacker News Reader

Comment by parpfish | Hacker News Reader

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i think part of the reason computers swept into classrooms so quickly is that we had a generation of old folks seeing their jobs get computerized and they (correctly) felt that computer-literacy would be essential for a huge swath of the workforce.

however, this group also had a very hard time learning how to use computers later in their career and felt "wow, this is really hard. we need to be very proactive about teaching this to kids".

it was well intentioned, but i think they really REALLY overestimated the need for 'teaching computer literacy' because: a) we've gotten a lot better with UX so computers are easy to use b) the older generations difficulty was more related to unlearning old ways and transitioning rather than difficulty inherent to computers

…except today's kids are not at all computer literate. They simply know how to click around and sometimes type.

Clicking around and sometimes typing is enough computer literacy for most jobs.

You should Google "marc prensky digital natives". You'll see this hype is over two decades old now.

> Unfortunately for our Digital Immigrant teachers, the people sitting in their classes grew up on the “twitch speed” of video games and MTV. > They are used to the instantaneity of hypertext, downloaded music, phones in their pockets, a library on their laptops, beamed messages and instant messaging. > They've been networked most or all of their lives. > They have little patience for lectures, step-by-step logic, and “tell-test” instruction.

There's a lot more cheerful predictions:

> My own preference for teaching Digital Natives is to invent computer games to do the job, even for the most serious content. > After all, it's an idiom with which most of them are totally familiar.

I think the core fact that learning is fundamentally about curiosity and motivation, not "engagement", was (and continues to be) glossed over, or intentionally ignored by a lot of tech-pushers.

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