In the UK they have these plans to teach primary school (age 4-11) children to program computers.
Personally I think children spend too long in front of computers anyway.
But the real reason this frightens me is that in a few years all these people will take my job! It wonât be a special skill any more. It would be just like learning to read.
Well I think Iâve still got a 5 year window where my skills are still worth something. Then Iâll have to find the next âbig thingâ - maybe that would be something home-brew DNA manipulation - before thatâs taught in schools too!
I feel like it would be more of a âthis is what this is likeâ kind of experience rather than much of a real true training in programming⌠more like baby steps into the overall concept so maybe later down the road those children who enjoy the experience, can maybe try getting into a real class, that challenges them a bit more. But then again I have no idea what specifically your talking about but the idea of children trying out programming in general seems like it would work out as just a way to get them to see what it takes to make stuff happen on a machine.
Oh and we will be obsolete in no time regardless, be it children or college students of tomorrow, just gotta stay on the cutting edge I suppose to keep up!
Well, no one has taken my job yet. Letâs put the technical aspect aside, because if you get it youâll always get it. As youâve touched on, you need to keep your skills up to date, no brainer there.
Iâve got 30+ years of practical and 20 years of professional experience and no recent graduate is going to bring the benefits that comes with it. Besides, thereâs a lot more to producing quality production level software (and maintaining it) than the programming part.
How is that news, and then how is that a bad thing? They taught kids how to program when I was in primary school in the early 80âs. Of course the languages were primitive LOGO, BBC BASIC and for the more advanced COBOL and LISP, but itâs just simple logic puzzles really.
They also taught us basic electronics (yay, 9v batteries, mini light bulbs and switches), would that also be bad?
TBH the whole thing about kids spending too long in front of computers strongly puts to mind this penny arcade comic :
I was taught programming when I was a preschooler. As a result, I was able to code in Assembler when I was about nine years old, and Iâve been programming ever since. I knew I was going to be a programmer my entire childhood.
That being said, I didnât really spend any time playing with other kids. Many people would say my childhood was ruined, but it was quite the contrary. My childhood was awesome, because I got to spend it exactly the way I wanted.
Iâd say itâs okay to teach the kids how to decompose a problem, create a solution and solve it in a playful way. I hope they wonât force the kids if theyâll hate it though.
Well thatâs sad that they dumbed down the courses to just IT at primary level then. And good that theyâre seeing sense and bringing this stuff back. As I said when i was in primary school in the early 80âs in London they were doing a lot more than that, of course the government hadnât yet called upon industry âexpertsâ (read : Microsoft) to create the curriculum, and we were still given our daily milk in the classroom.
Children should have the opportunity to learn the skills associated with programming computers at an early age, itâs an intrinsic part of modern life for the foreseeable future and if you want to generate revenue from it rather than just sitting playing games on it or endlessly surfing facebook then you need to get a little more savvy, otherwise youâll only ever be a consumer rather than a producer, and thatâs not just bad for you itâs bad for the economy.
I donât think itâs real programming, I think itâs visual Scripting. When I was in school a few years ago they used to make the younger years use Microsofts Kodu thing to learn programming concepts.
Here in Italy even if you donât study computer science at high school they teach you programming for some years.
Of course people donât care about it as youâre considered a nerd with no life if you like programming and computers in general, this country has the worst people ever.
I had a short class in programming in 3rd grade, as part of a âGiftedâ program for children who had high IQs. (In other words, they were bored in regular classes and needed more work to keep them occupied.) That kindled a love of programming in me that led to my current job title, âSenior Developerâ. It is probably the single most influential thing that happened to me in all my years of school.
Reflecting on that, Iâve often wished that kids were exposed to more things they might like, including programming, painting, music, wood/metal working, and many other disciplines. As it stands, they typically only get introduced to a very few things at school, and whatever their parents do for a living. They deserve to get structured exposure to more things.
So Iâm glad that at least some schools have a plan to add programming to the early curriculum. I hope they add more things as well.
Thatâs certainly a good thing. Itâs not like it will ever affect your job position. What theyâre learning is most likely a simplified version of real programming which only really teaches the basic principles. Like the Turtle graphics library that can be found in Python: 24.5. turtle â Turtle graphics for Tk â Python 2.7.18 documentation
When I was in 3 grade we were first taught Visual Basic. As we progressed down the years, we were taught C and HTML. Never really had any sort of interest in those at that point of time. Kids at that age usually like to run and play around and donât feel the need to learn programming.
I read the woman they put in charge of it in the UK doesnât understand coding at all. Typical western gubmnt boondoggling at itâs crony driven finest. I think it was at TheRegister I read that and the comments section was a hoot to read.
I absolutely refuse to live in fear of what some children learning (insert skill x here) will do to me in 20 years.
I wish them all the luck and opportunity in the world, as I do to each of you. The world is a harsh abusive place where its difficult enough to get by â most especially with corporations looking to extract wealth out of us at the minimum wage possible.
Many young adults will exit university deep in debt and enter a job market with no openings for them , and then be forced to work at low quality service jobs earning minimum wages for a decade before finding a job that doesnât match their major (or their dreams).
Iâm particularly sick of the United States trend of âteaching for the test scoresâ and dropping all the other subjects that donât get âNCLBâ funding.
We need well rounded humans with broad interests and a great base of skills and intelligence to form our future. These are children! If you can only survive by suppressing the future of children you should question if you are doing the right thing.
But really I suggest you stop worrying about what 6th graders are learning and be the best you can be - its really all you could ever do anyways - and will be a lot more productive than worrying about others.
<------ My avatars saying. âRun the sky is falling!â
I think itâs always good to have a good dose of paranoia. Keeps you on your toes! And on day when the sky really does fall down. You can sit in your bunker with your 365 cans of tinned peaches and your spare tin opener wearing your tin foil hat (to keep off the cosmic rays) feeling smug.
It wonât be a special skill any more. It would be just like learning to read.
