This "learn to code" meme is getting tiresome.
Why not focus on the more critical skills in life that are more applicable to most people. Here's a big one:
1. Learn to communicate. Improve your writing and speaking skills.
Why not focus on the more critical skills in life that are more applicable to most people. Here's a big one:
1. Learn to communicate. Improve your writing and speaking skills.
This said, I agree that "learn to code" is tiresome. Why aren't cries of "learn basic electrical engineering" as popular? Or, if we want clear societal benefit, why not advocate learning how to swim? Thousands of American adults and teenagers drown every year; something like 36% of Americans cannot swim.
Of course "either tell people to learn how to swim, or tell them to learn to code" is a false dichotomy (both can be done at once) but I am wondering why "learn to code" gets so much attention. The amount I hear about getting the general public to code seems disproportionate.
Power and leverage? Yes, coding gives you those things, in certain domains, but I do not buy the argument that teaching coding is the most efficient way of teaching these things. Trying to use coding to teach critical thinking, logical reasoning, and basic troubleshooting would surely work, but we have these things built into language and fields that is already designed to handle it first and foremost, without the material distraction.
Very few universities start their CS programs off with something other than vocational drudgery that would be pointless for anybody who just wants those nice side effects of learning to code.
Coding is an abstraction on top of an ever more essential skill: directing automated symbol manipulation. It seems foundational and those fighting against it are best likened to the subset of monks who surely saw writing as a skill to be learned only by a select few and not as some universal, fundamental skill all people would need to participate in society.
Making sure that people can effectively use computers is different from having people learn to code. I really think that anyone who insists that the later is necessary has some serious tunnel-vision.
More people want to learn how to code now because they realize they are at a fundamental disadvantage in manipulating these things that are entering every facet of our lives. This is the dominant force, not the slow marginalization of the utility of writing source code vs. well established problems like those that can be solved by Excel. In any case, programmers are currently proverbial priests who are the gatekeepers to enabling this effective use of computers, which I think explains a lot of the resistance to this stuff.
I don't think that follows. My hypothesis is that lots of programmers think that programming is more important than it really is, and politicians wanting to get tech on their side, humor them.
You know how rural farming towns often have strong 4H clubs? I think this "teach kids to code" stuff is the tech equivalent of that. Everyone wants little jimmy to grow up just like daddy and mommy, because daddy and mommy consider their line of work to be uniquely important or special.
Those communities think it is very important for children to learn how to raise cows, or drive a tractor. Ours thinks that it is very important for children to know something about computer programming. I think that either suffers from tunnel-vision and is is trying to put children into a box.
Society is on a trajectory. Automation, information processing, software. It is well on its way to permeate literally every facet of life. If there is a more direct way to position people to not be left behind in this shift than ensuring they have a basic grasp of computer science and understand they can make computers do what they want via code, I'd be hard pressed to come up with it.
Because when, outside of work and hobbies, have you ever found it useful to know basic EE? Unless you're rewiring houses on a regular basis, I can't really think of a common situation where you'd need this type of knowledge. OTOH and IMHO, everybody should know how to use a computer and have at least a rudimentary idea what the thing is capable of.
Edit: Actually, rewiring houses isn't even EE, it's whatever we call what electricians do.
Meanwhile, since you and I can both code, we naturally inflate the importance of it. If we could not code, we would still get along in life just as well as the majority of the population (which by most reasonable accounts, is "just fine"). Basic computer literacy is much different from the ability to code, and this is only becoming more true year after year.
If schools aren't teaching circuits, V=IR and P=IV, I agree they should. But I'm pretty sure in many cases they are, so you're arguing with a straw man.
Adipose tissue (fat) has a density slightly lower than that of water, so the primary concern is really keeping your head above water and not panicking (both of those are mostly technique, not really 'physical feats'). Once you've got floating mastered, an elementary backstroke will get you moving slowly through the water without much caloric expenditure.
Swimming ability seems to correspond to family income (and therefore access to pools) rather closely. Increasing the swimming skills of the general population would mostly be a matter of ensuring that school districts have pools, and making swimming lessons in PE classes a higher priority. Kids don't die because they don't know how to play badminton, but people do drown...
(Disclosure: One of my jobs through highschool and part of college was working as a swimming instructor, which is part of why this issue has my attention)
Just consider how much Excel is used in just about any business. A tiny bit of VBA can really work wonders. Sure, a guy emptying bins isn't going to be helped by learning to code, but there are a huge number of people in desk jobs where just a bit of coding ability would make an enormous difference to productivity.
In short: I'm not convinced your assertion that writing and speaking skills are broadly more important is correct.
Even in the software field, most companies are looking for people that can communicate effectively as well as code. I know the industry has a higher tolerance for people who are talented but lack social and communication skills but there are only so many companies out there that can accommodate these individuals.
2. Learn to speak.