Not too long ago, we were told that every student in K12 should learn to code.
The “experts” said that computer programming had become an essential skill, not only leading students to good, secure jobs, but also building the “workforce of the future”.
Remember, not too long ago, when we were told that every student must learn to code? It was an imperative to save the future, our economy, and society in general. Or something like that.
Although we’ve been teaching kids to write programs for computers since the first day we brought them into the classroom, it’s only been relatively recently that we heard the call from educators, politicians, and pundits to have coding for all!
Maybe we should even have every kid train to become an app developer, because that’s where the money was going. Or something like that.
Remember when we were told that every student needed to learn coding? That programming skills would be essential for them to get good jobs in the future? And leaders told us that all those newly trained coders would be a big boost for the overall economy?
Except that, as an article in Wired explains, the ability to code is fast becoming unnecessary for entrepreneurs to build applications. New tools mean “you don’t need to know any programming to launch a company.”
We have been told that everyone can code… and I have no doubt that is true.
At the most basic level, writing code is a matter of understanding the logical systems used by computers and then creating a set of instructions the processor can follow. Just about anyone can learn to do that.
Does every student NEED to learn to code?