The lead article in Sunday’s New York Times is about the movement to teach computer science, computational thinking, and computer programming in K-12, driven by Seattle’s Code.org:
“It is a stark change for computer science, which for decades was treated like a stepchild, equated with trade classes like wood shop …
“Computer programming should be taught in every school, said Hadi Partovi, the founder of Code.org and a former executive at Microsoft. He called it as essential as ‘learning about gravity or molecules, electricity or photosynthesis.'”
The article is heavily focused on “coding” and “skills” and “jobs,” and in that sense misses the most important point: Programming is the hands-on inquiry-based way we teach computational thinking, which is an essential capability for just about everyone in the 21st century. Referencing Hadi, you don’t learn about “gravity or molecules, electricity or photosynthesis” for vocational purposes, but rather because they lead you to important “modes of thought”!
Oh well … we’ll join together in blaming Matt Richtel and fall back on the adage that “pretty much any press is good press.”
Read more here.