I wish schools would at least OFFER coding classes. They don't have to be mandatory, but a computer class more advanced than "This is a keyboard, this is a mouse, this is how you open Microsoft Word......" would be nice.
As another person below noted, then everybody should learn electronics too since we have so much electronics around us. By the way, I am professional level programmer, hobby electronics hacker, and home car mechanics. I enjoy them all. But I know better than to think everybody should be forced to learn these subjects.
Coding is very important to learn, especially for a child. Coding is children's key to unlocking the future. That's why educators are beginning to call for making computer science a cornerstone of the curriculum, even for grade school students. Computer science requires analytical skills, problem solving and creativity, while also being both foundational and vocational.
i was taught basic programing in highschool however it was a math teacher teaching the class who clearly was just getting the code from her book (also she was bad at math XD )
I disagree with his notion that everybody should learn to code, I don't even think everybody should learn math as it is taught today. Most people really just need the bare basics (add, subtract, multiply, divide, with a little common sense percentages to calculate tips and such). What people need, however, is mathematical thinking, logic, and scientific approach to solving their problems. Math is a great tool, if you know when and how to apply it correctly.
I personally think that a very basic understanding of coding could help with mathematics as well. Why? Because it's impossible to write a code to do something unless you know exactly how it works. As it is now, we're teaching students to solve problems that can be solved with a calculator or CAS... it's kind of a waste of time. Imagine if in 9th grade you'd written a program that takes ax+b=c and outputs x=(c-b)/a. With 4 or 5 lines of code you would've just solved the next 200 problems your teacher would have assigned for homework. I feel like this is also why almost no one wants to be a mathematician, because they imagine guys sitting around going "oh boy, let's solve 3217+463 for fun." Of course not. They (most of them) find that shit just as boring as you do. Maths is about the quest for immutable truths that are older than the very universe itself, and mathematicians are people who study whichever of those truths they find the most beautiful. But we never teach students anything remotely beautiful. We just turn them into organic calculators who can always be replaced by a faster and more accurate one made of plastic. How could they not hate that?
It's a double-edge sword. As a nerd, I'd like to live in a world where everyone can code, at least a basic level. Face it, interacting with NTPs (non-technical person), can often be frustrating. On the other hand, the people who can not code, but heavily depend on computers, provide eternal job security for the rest of us.
I think people should learn the concept or structure to coding to develop their logic/problem solving skills, but learning the specific languages would be extremely unnecessary since you'll never need to use it outside of career/hobby.. electronic devices are designed for cavemen to use so you don't need the knowledge, and the more and more complex they get the less that knowledge is going to help you anyways
Unfortunately structure has very little meaning outside of specific languages - so I don't understand how one could teach structure without using a language to demonstrate the purpose of that structure.
I graduated with Chemistry a few months ago, and nearly every chemistry-related job I have applied to for people with only a bachelors requires you to be an expert in java/python or some other language, which I'm not. If you're doing a math or physical science degree, you better learn to code.
I think some people are taking the idea too far. Obviously not EVERYONE should become an EXPERT at Programming, Or Electrical engineering, or Aviation. But everyone should have some basic understanding of how things work, that way they can troubleshoot basic issues like squeaky fan belts, what that BSoD means and how to fix it, or Why does my power fuse keep tripping when I put the deep fryer, Kettle, and electric barbeque on at the same time. I am frequently in contact with people who do not know how to troubleshoot their malfunctioning equipment because they have no idea what is happening. I had no idea about PC building or troubleshooting, but I learnt, and now I don't need to pay hundreds of dollars for someone else to tell me my Graphics driver is old.
***** and it probably always will be, but..! even using a search engine reasonable tend to need a basic knowledge -> at the end, all comes down to know how the basics works. lmgtfy.com is a good example for the fact, that some guy on the net are too lasy or whatsoever... this isn't the cure of the world. Basic knowledge and a decent attitude toward any subject they encounter is what many of us are trying and some should better start off right away. Just my confused cents...
No. There are two people who think that everyone should learn how to code 1) politicians and managers who don't know how to code, but believe that everyone else should learn how to code in order to make programmers cheaper to hire or eliminate the need to hire them at all. 2) programmers who are frustrated by the lack of empathy and understanding of their customers and said managers; in the hope that it will make them see how hard this job actually is. But the reality is, if everyone needs to know how to code then everyone should also know car mechanics, chemistry, air traffic rules, all the world religions, art history, medicine and basically everything about anything.
My IT lessons felt relatively useless and shallow, so some coding would have been an improvement I think. However it's not for everyone. I've just started some _extremely_ low level coding at age 22 and it's so satisfying, but requires a lot of strict logic.
I think this is the same answer to the question as to ask: "should everyone learn to build a house?" - No. You will be fine by just knowing that building a house is not an easy task. Same goes to Coding. It is no easy task. It hides complexity to ease usage. I don't think that the general problem is that people think coding is an easy task - neither are people thinking building a house is an easy task. You don't need to understand any of those two "crafts" to use the product of those. The problem is: why does this question arise in the first place? Questions like these come from people who claim that their discipline has something to do with art, something to do with "me, and only me can do that - you can't". Come back to earth, you are providing a SERVICE to others. This way - and only this way - we developed from "everyone has to gather food on their own" to a society which learned to embrace specialisation over all-rounders.
In Germany they don't teach us coding in school. There are some schools but the most schools aren't. In computer sience we're just learning how to use Word and stuff like that. I would love to learn coding in school. I'm learning myself since years now PHP, MySQL(i) (HTML + CSS) and now I'm learning Java to make apps and later I want to learn JavaScript (jQuery, Ajax) and Python. Me, a 15 year old, found some security issues on the website of my school like XSS. I would love to talk to my friends about programming but no one cares about programming and for me that's sad. I'm the only programmer in my class. Forever alone ;)
You learn how to use Word in Computer Science? That's is what we learn in IT class in Britain, programming is done in computer science (at a-level it is called computing, we don't do computer science until university).
I think they should spend at least some time on the subject in school. This way young people can decide for themselves if it is something they want to pursue. Writing code has got to be more involving than solving pages of math problems.
And it also can be very fun, I was excited to make a game but I needed trigonometry to make it the way I wanted. In the end I finished my game and relearned trigonometry.
I don't know when it'll happen, but I've thought for a long time that basic coding teaching will happen eventually as a part of childhood education. I mean, it's like he said, learning the basics of code is kind of like learning the basics of math at this point. Less essential than math, sure, but it's becoming more important over time. Hell, most people probably know some code and they don't even know it. HTML is a kind of code - so is BB code on internet forums ("[]" tags and the like). Granted, that stuff isn't going to compile and run a program from scratch, but my first exposure to code was through HTML and then steadily CSS. And although I'm decent at scripting, I'm still not familiar with object-oriented programming. But it doesn't matter cause I know enough about how it all works that I can comprehend many of the concepts with little explanation. Without the foundation, people may be needlessly fearful. For example, I know that if a virus gets on my computer and I force it to shut down with the power button, the virus is software-based (not hardware) so it can't do anything until I bring the computer back online (and usually not until the operating system is loaded). It's not like it's going to take over physical control of my computer and turn it back on. Little things like that might sound stupidly obvious to some people, but if you haven't been exposed to the inner workings at all, then it's easy to end up with false beliefs about how our tech works.
Funnily enough, my first experience with coding was through lego, using the mindstorms kit. You built a program using blocks that contained if functions and loops etc...
***** So much wrong. Research and education are two entirely separate things. One finds NEW knowledge. Other one teaches old knowledge. Big difference. It would be wonderful if it did, but it doesn't. It forces people to learn, doesn't teach how to do it. I had to figure that one out on my own time. Passion for learning can't be taught. Either a person has passion or they don't. It may come at a later stage in life, but it most certainly can't be instilled as a matter of course.
When I first got into programming, I was overjoyed. I was taught this method of creating something that is so convenient, and require so little hand skill and tools. And the satisfaction of working out bugs is just immense. I'm grateful that I've learned programming back then cause I am constantly using it in my studies (Mechanical Engineering). I think coding is a great way to let students know how computers work, but you have to make it interesting. I think taking a more mechatronics approach will better suit that purpose, as there are physical interactions as well as digital interactions. You can have one team programming in Java for a controller app on the android, and have another team program in C for the robot.
Anyone who hasn't written a program by the time they have signed up for a university computer course is probably not that into it and will probably drop out. Anyone interested in programming can learn it easily at home on their home computer for free.
Only in HTML and CSS. Teaching most anyone to program is ridiculous. If they're capable, they'll learn on their own. Coding, however, is something anyone can learn.
I think an introduction with something like Scratch would be a great way to introduce how computers work to all children. I really agree, too many people view computers as "magical" and have no understanding of how they work.
Another way of phrasing this question could be "Should everybody learn to program?", which I think may be easier for most people to say "Yes" to. Today there's so many ways to program, and thinking in terms of a programmer is perhaps a more important category than simply 'being able to code'. Just as the use of high-level programming languages is a quantum leap above now-archaic forms of computer operation, such tape and punch cards, so now we are seeing a proliferation of graphical interfaces which allow people to program without coding. It's a progression into ever higher levels of abstraction and it allows millions of people to configure and optimize their own experience of the internet and the web-enabled devices that they use. So yes, coding is, and will probably always be an important part of Programming, but right now it is a sub-set of programming. Thus, the right question might be "should kids be learning how to program?" For me the answer is easy. Yes.
IT, using computers, is already mandatory up to GCSE level but sadly computer science is not, we are teaching people to read but not to write, you don't need to teach English students to write literary masterpieces but they still need simple writing/literature, each school should give the option to do computer science but not make it mandatory.
Coding definitely should be self-taught, that's the best way to understanding it, and learning it beyond what is taught. What I used to do is find snippets, scripts and other code, look through how each part of the code achieves an effect, and work off that.
What really rankles me is how many people are so ill-informed that they assume and believe that programmers, (or anyone interested in science, technology, engineering, or mathematics), generally comprise a list of subhuman stereotypes, and consequently ridicule and belittle us. It's much better once we reach adulthood, because there are often opportunities to avoid people who do so, but there are now many such adults too, and some have influence over public policies, so it might just be avoiding the problem. If we could instill the importance of programming at an early age, maybe there'd be less of a stigma surrounding it... and hopefully a bit less violence and psychological torture as a result.
Every time you suggest that people should learn BASIC, Dijkstra finds the quickest way to turn in his grave! Seriously, any language whose name was ever spelled with only uppercase letters is unsuitable as a first programming language. Well, maybe LISP is an exception. But these days, it's safer to stick with PPR (Perl, Python, Ruby) due to their lack of verbosity (allowing students to see clearly what the important parts are) and availability of a REPL environment for testing small sections of code. Of course, they're not the best languages out there, but they're easy to get a feel of.
no. Pseudo-code will just leave them with nothing. Better to teach them something they might actually use and see the results of and be the cause of. Teach them to program a few basic program functions (takes nearly no time) in a couple three languages, like a few lines of code in sql to give an application database functionality, maybe program a graphical calculator in C# or Java, and then perhaps a picture viewer in C++. The rest can be more about software systems so that they at least know how things relate to one another and are composed of, although they might not know exactly how to code it.
I'm not a programmer at all, however, I do know how to code and I can program some logic codes. It really helps to know the basics, because, as you said, you can see the world in a computational way.
I've learned C, C++, Common Lisp, Python and a few others. The best way to learn to program is reading good source code and having your work mercilessly ripped apart in an IRC group. Not dancing through the flowers in PHP and HTML5. Not everyone should learn to program, only those who are interested in how computers work should learn. And enough Java already. I'm tired of it being taught like a religion in college. The way it never lets the user deviate from OOP is nauseating and hand-binding.
I would take it one step further, i don't think schools are putting enough energy into teaching kids how things interact. Your lego example is great but lego has hardly no resemblance to the real world as it is. - How does an elevator work... (I used to believe there was a motor pulling the whole weight of the cage, no counterweight involved) - What makes the lights go on in your room... I never spent much thought about it until i started learning about Electronics. - What is the internet really? Most people just see it as a bunch of cables spanning the globe but there is so much more to it... And it's explained just briefly in school but fancy images and text is no match for practical experience. Build your own elevator, hook up your own lighting system (low voltage of course) and build your own digital network (doesn't have to be fancy) Then kids will have a greater appreciation for what all this technology actually brought them. And how easily it all can fail and leave the world without and back to stone age standards.
how often have we heard (or said this ourselves when we were young!) about some topic of maths: "when am i ever going to need this!??" well, having some skills in maths helps us with problem solving and logic - skills that are necessary for everyday life. for the same reason, coding should also be introduced in school (at what year level or to what extent is another discussion). but it's not unreasonable to expect pupils to have a basic understanding + appreciation of programming by the time they finish high school.
Computer science was included in schools when I was young. What happened? Back then, of course, if you were going to use the computer at all, you were probably going to have to do some programming. When you first turned the machine on, it was waiting for you to type in a program.
I think it would be cool if it was a standard elementary / primary school course for kids to learn some dialect of BASIC, or perhaps JavaScript, which is the current CS-101 language of choice. Just the basics of variables, loops, functions, operators, and flow control. Probably it would be easy to introduce objects too, which are actually closer to the intuitive way we think of real-world objects. Inculcating these skills early will result in smarter brains with a better capacity to analyze systems.
Real code is too advanced at this young age. They wouldn't appreciate what you can do with it. However, I think using something like scratch.mit.edu/ at this age would get kids to be interested in coding (mostly cause you make games with).
I started writing code (BASIC) at 10 years old, just simple games and things. Didn't start writing 6502 assembler till I was 15 or so. I had to figure out so much by myself. If only the internet had existed in 1977...
honestly I think we should be taught about computer programming from a young age. I'm a university student who first came across programming in my second year, and it was remarkable to me how ignorant I have been to the workings of computers. I mean, I use these machines every day of my life and I never really understood wtf was actually going on. we can't expect our children to continue living their lives unaware of what is happening behind the scenes in a mobile phone/laptop because they'll be under the impression that it's some sort of magical /mystical device
I think kids should be taught logic. It really doesn't matter if that is through an Arduino or PC or even on paper. The skills that kids learn in logical thinking will make them better decision makers in whatever career they choose later in life. In terms of learning all the syntax for a real programming language so they can code for real, that's only really important for the kids that want to become programmers. This is sort of why maths is important to kids as it trains them to think in a particular way. But just as kids could be turned off by maths I think kids could be turned off by coding. This is why I think just logic should be taught, which can be introduced in inventive ways that kids can engage with and help them to make decisions.
We should sort out the teaching of grammar in this country before we start teaching anything about coding. The primary school teachers that are already supposed to be teaching this don't actually know it themselves. There's already a country in the world that produces an inordinate amount of really bad programmers. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.
I would love to learn programing however every time I try, it take a very long time to write a program that is under 100 lines. Very frustrating to know that another person new to programing would have done the project in two weeks. I know this because the project was from Stanford online computer course. It took me three months of writing bad code.
Learning to code changed your mind. You develop new neurological pathways that allow you to build logic models on the fly. If more people had the ability to apply that to every day life the world would be a much more beautiful place.
I think everybody should understand it enough so that if I explain something I did on a computer they would comprehend rather than just nodding and moving on. It should be like writing a book: everyone knows how to do it, but only some do it for a living, and those who do are good at it.
You know I also do programming and dont neccesarily like math, the way I learn it is by thinking about how the math could help me program something and then I at least have a practical use for it. In normal math class it's just do this plus that and then you get more numbers without seeing any practical thing on a screen or anything, not for me.
Learning to code is more about learning to manage complexity. How to reason about systems of processes. A huge part of our every day lives is to manage systems of processes that depend on each other, that conflict with each other, that influence each other at a distance in a spooky way. Understanding things in such a systematic way allows us to make sense of consequences that may or may not look like a direct result of any one process.
i thought the same thing although i dont really know how to code i do know how it works not every one has to learn how to code but should understand somethings about it
We teach kids basics of flight (lift, drag, power, etc.) in physics classes but we don't expect everyone to be a pilot. Educating people about how the world works keeps them from filling in the gaps of their knowledge with baseless crap.Thus you have people afraid to buy things online because someone told them it was unsafe vs. them having an understanding at a high level of why it's less risky than crossing the street to a shop.
I support the idea that coding should (or at least could) be an accessible, widely taught subject in public school, even if the development of future professional coders is not the objective. It can touch on logic, design, decision making, math, art, music or whatever else people can imagine engaging with code. (Look at Bjork's Biophilia project for schools to see what I mean). It's not hard to consider familiarity with coding as a general kind of literacy for our technological society. Just as critical reading skills can help you be a discerning citizen (and not necessarily a professional critic), so too could knowledge of coding (and programming in general) help you to be a more empowered and discerning citizen in all aspects of our technological society. Many of the commenters on this thread reject the idea because they think it will create more competition and devalue their current earning potential. I think they're just being selfish, elitist babies. Who knows what millions of kids might do under the influence of coding and various types of programmable interfaces at their fingertips? What might they create or imagine? The last thing they're going to be thinking about is going out to replace you at your job.
Learning languages at an early stage of your life is a must. It is a lot easier to grasp the fundamentals when your young. Technical skills and programming will not suit everybody but implementing fun ways to grasp the basics should ensure that those that are keen and talented have the resources to go all the way.. Good interview ... thanks
I wish we could've learnt some programming in school. I'm just finishing a degree in physics and some programming knowledge would have been really useful. It's hard to learn it by yourself when it's completely new.
Be glad you hadnt my teacher, he did more harm than anything. 90% of his teaching was: type what I have written down in your pc and it will work. That truely helps.
Well I've had to learn to code essentially on the job, and it has been a fun journey, but it's also given me appreciation of exactly how fragile software really is as a system, and I find that a bit scary :P
I was born in '97 but my first programming experience was with BASIC on an old Commodore 64 and i'm still in the process of learning various languages. Mostly just plain C and assembler for my university course but my point is that programming at a young age, even if I didn't understand it all, really made me see the world of technology differently.
I am not sure if it would work, but I would love to see more programmers. I do wonder why most people don't have a passion for programming, but maybe it doesn't rock their world. Knowledge can't be forced though, everyone hated math at school and maybe everyone will hate programming if it's forced (while they are beautiful outside of the context of school). And I was always self-taught, learned much more about programming at home than school or university. And I still haven't started watching the video :)
Coding as form of literture studies , should be interesting too , to look at the codings of famousworks , how they acomplished them and how the coding language they used helped ,
Not even started watching the video but YES, everybody (EVERYBODY) should learn some sort of coding. After i learned some simple programming i immediately gained a deeper insight into what makes a computer tick. Knowing that i also learned to adapt to ever changing situations because i am aware of what's actually going on behind the scenes. Further more, i could take my knowledge of programming (logical, sequential thinking) with me into the real world and apply it there. Suddenly, machines and interactions in general became more "digitized" for me. You have to do A before you do B but it doesn't matter if you do C or D after that as long as you do E.
I would argue most programmers don't know how computers work either. They use high level languages just as mindlessly as lay-people use applications. I'll bet that someone who uses AutoCAD could just as easily learn to use MatLab. If you really want to appreciate computers and computer programs, you should not learn high-level programming, you should learn about digital circuits, digital memory, boolean algebra, and assembly language. There are obvious reasons why this kind of introduction is not for everyone, but it is a necessary step to distinguish skilled programmers from amateurs.
He is wrong. It requires mental capacity which few people have. Like it or not, much of humanity is obsolete at this point. Coding, maths, science depend on the same mental capacity, which is something people are born with.
If everybody is taught useless crap like history, they should definitely know at least some of the basics of computing. It's the modern world, we realy on computers. So everybody should know something about how they work
This is a very important subject. I graduated High School back in 1999 and had a lot of advantages that most people STILL don't have. I took both intro to computer programming in 11th grade and then computer programming AP in highschool. I also had the advantage that my father was a developer for Intel at the time. Basically I knew I wanted to be a programmer but a lot of my college friends in the same program hated it and wished that had done something else because they didn't know what it involved at that time. Most professions people know what they do without doing it themselves, programmers most people know they work with computers, but that's all the seem to know.
I was lucky to be offered a half year of BASIC and a half year of FORTRAN in junior year of high school. The only real programming so far in college Mechanical Engineering has been a single semester of C. I think at least a semester of basic programming logic should be had in every high school just the same way as something like a general algebra class is required.
Ugh, There should have been a third time with the LEGO's where they didn't topple over. Haha, no seriously (heavily breathing and trembling from OCD). Center the tower on the front-back axis (POV from the camera). The tower should have no deviations on the front-back axis. Too little support is there. Deviation the left is not advisable as there is no support there, unless of course counterweight is added to the right of the plaquet, plate. There is however still a small problem there, there's just a 2x2 connection between the tower and platelet. This might not suffice. Deviation to the right is possible within reason , again the 2x2 connection is a problem. Also remember 3 words: foundation, foundation, foundation! When the plate is put on a hard floor instead of carpet more daring designs could be pursued. When on carpet, the initial indentation of the carpet caused by the weight of the tower will cause the tower to topple over easier. The other side of the platelet will not indent the carpet as much therefore the tower will have a slight initial lean angle which causes the torque around the base caused by gravity to increase. This torque will then lift the right side of the platelet which in turn will increase the lean angle, etc. Resulting in a toppled over tower. These are all the options similar to the option as the one shown in the video. (Without altering the height or placement of the tower on the plate too much. ) BTW Yes I said platelet, plaquet and plate. It bothers me too that i don't have a single accurate description of this thing. Platelet seems to have a too medical connatation. Plaquet seems also innacurate as it usually has something written on it which differentiates it from a normal plate. (also i dought the spelling of the word). Plate is too big, it doesn't express the small size of the plate enough. My most sincere apologies for being so off-topic.
Does it count as coding if I use a system that creates a result by connecting nodes and wires together to produce results? Such as "Blueprints" in Unreal Engine 4. It's visual, I'm an Artist.
I wrote my first program in secondary school using macros in Excel. Not because we were told to do it in class, but because I wanted to do it and really enjoyed it. If I had known about text-based programming back then, I would have chosen to do computer science at university instead of the course I'm currently doing. I think it's an injustice to children to not at least give them an understanding of what programming is before they choose what they wanna do with their lives.
I think people should be taught how basic computers and systems work, both to get a fuller understanding of other subjects, and to understand the importance of security with computers. Kids should also be taught programming so they don't think all code is a black-box for only 'nerds' to look at, and see it as a career path if nothing else. They could learn that computers aren't secure, and that it is very hard to make them secure, so you should be extremely careful with your information on computers. People assume programmers make things extremely secure, and that their info is fine on most websites, though as much as I wish it was true, it's not, even with large websites like for banks. Personally, it helped me understand math and science a whole lot better. I could understand complex systems of formulas better because I understood the concept of using formulas and variables in programming at a younger age than when I had to use them in school. It also let me write programs to graph, observe and interact with mathematics and physics. Writing those programs let me see what would happen if I removed a part of a formula or algorithm, and then understand better why it is there.
Modern Windows (95 and newer) and similar "user friendly" operating systems have actually taken us a step backwards in this area. Anyone who used a computer in the 80's and even early 90's had to learn certain concepts in either DOS or BASIC. While not full fledged "coding," it kept users closer to what was going on than the shiny GUIs we use today. Many of us, myself included, actually took some interest in programming when BASIC was standard as either the interface (Commodore, Apple II, Timex/Sinclair, etc.,) or included in DOS. Once BASIC, and eventually any text based interface, was taken away or hidden from the common user, any concept of how the computer works was left entirely foreign to new users.
I wish schools would at least OFFER coding classes. They don't have to be mandatory, but a computer class more advanced than "This is a keyboard, this is a mouse, this is how you open Microsoft Word......" would be nice.
As another person below noted, then everybody should learn electronics too since we have so much electronics around us.
By the way, I am professional level programmer, hobby electronics hacker, and home car mechanics. I enjoy them all. But I know better than to think everybody should be forced to learn these subjects.
My reaction seeing this title: YES OF COURSE IS THAT EVEN A QUESTION?
Coding is very important to learn, especially for a child. Coding is children's key to unlocking the future. That's why educators are beginning to call for making computer science a cornerstone of the curriculum, even for grade school students. Computer science requires analytical skills, problem solving and creativity, while also being both foundational and vocational.
i was taught basic programing in highschool however it was a math teacher teaching the class who clearly was just getting the code from her book (also she was bad at math XD )
I disagree with his notion that everybody should learn to code, I don't even think everybody should learn math as it is taught today. Most people really just need the bare basics (add, subtract, multiply, divide, with a little common sense percentages to calculate tips and such).
What people need, however, is mathematical thinking, logic, and scientific approach to solving their problems. Math is a great tool, if you know when and how to apply it correctly.
Make a how to write basic coding channel!
Mother said to her programmer son: "while you are out buy some bread", Her son never came back :D
I personally think that a very basic understanding of coding could help with mathematics as well. Why? Because it's impossible to write a code to do something unless you know exactly how it works. As it is now, we're teaching students to solve problems that can be solved with a calculator or CAS... it's kind of a waste of time.
Imagine if in 9th grade you'd written a program that takes ax+b=c and outputs x=(c-b)/a. With 4 or 5 lines of code you would've just solved the next 200 problems your teacher would have assigned for homework.
I feel like this is also why almost no one wants to be a mathematician, because they imagine guys sitting around going "oh boy, let's solve 3217+463 for fun." Of course not. They (most of them) find that shit just as boring as you do. Maths is about the quest for immutable truths that are older than the very universe itself, and mathematicians are people who study whichever of those truths they find the most beautiful. But we never teach students anything remotely beautiful. We just turn them into organic calculators who can always be replaced by a faster and more accurate one made of plastic. How could they not hate that?
It's a double-edge sword. As a nerd, I'd like to live in a world where everyone can code, at least a basic level.
Face it, interacting with NTPs (non-technical person), can often be frustrating.
On the other hand, the people who can not code, but heavily depend on computers, provide eternal job security for the rest of us.
My answer:
No, because then we'll make less money!
I think people should learn the concept or structure to coding to develop their logic/problem solving skills, but learning the specific languages would be extremely unnecessary since you'll never need to use it outside of career/hobby.. electronic devices are designed for cavemen to use so you don't need the knowledge, and the more and more complex they get the less that knowledge is going to help you anyways
Unfortunately structure has very little meaning outside of specific languages - so I don't understand how one could teach structure without using a language to demonstrate the purpose of that structure.
Jagara, check out Numberphile's new video /watch?v=lNuPy-r1GuQ... that is one example of learning structure without language
I graduated with Chemistry a few months ago, and nearly every chemistry-related job I have applied to for people with only a bachelors requires you to be an expert in java/python or some other language, which I'm not.
If you're doing a math or physical science degree, you better learn to code.
When you write a piece of code and you see it run exactly like you wanted it to run, it's like a drug, it hooks you in and does not let go.
..and it's all downhill from there :-)
Tony Manso
True.
To everyone? No. But there always being the choice to learn it? Mandatory.
I think some people are taking the idea too far. Obviously not EVERYONE should become an EXPERT at Programming, Or Electrical engineering, or Aviation.
But everyone should have some basic understanding of how things work, that way they can troubleshoot basic issues like squeaky fan belts, what that BSoD means and how to fix it, or Why does my power fuse keep tripping when I put the deep fryer, Kettle, and electric barbeque on at the same time.
I am frequently in contact with people who do not know how to troubleshoot their malfunctioning equipment because they have no idea what is happening.
I had no idea about PC building or troubleshooting, but I learnt, and now I don't need to pay hundreds of dollars for someone else to tell me my Graphics driver is old.
well there's always google
***** and it probably always will be, but..! even using a search engine reasonable tend to need a basic knowledge -> at the end, all comes down to know how the basics works. lmgtfy.com is a good example for the fact, that some guy on the net are too lasy or whatsoever... this isn't the cure of the world.
Basic knowledge and a decent attitude toward any subject they encounter is what many of us are trying and some should better start off right away.
Just my confused cents...
No. There are two people who think that everyone should learn how to code
1) politicians and managers who don't know how to code, but believe that everyone else should learn how to code in order to make programmers cheaper to hire or eliminate the need to hire them at all.
2) programmers who are frustrated by the lack of empathy and understanding of their customers and said managers; in the hope that it will make them see how hard this job actually is.
But the reality is, if everyone needs to know how to code then everyone should also know car mechanics, chemistry, air traffic rules, all the world religions, art history, medicine and basically everything about anything.
My IT lessons felt relatively useless and shallow, so some coding would have been an improvement I think. However it's not for everyone. I've just started some _extremely_ low level coding at age 22 and it's so satisfying, but requires a lot of strict logic.
I think this is the same answer to the question as to ask: "should everyone learn to build a house?" - No.
You will be fine by just knowing that building a house is not an easy task. Same goes to Coding. It is no easy task. It hides complexity to ease usage.
I don't think that the general problem is that people think coding is an easy task - neither are people thinking building a house is an easy task. You don't need to understand any of those two "crafts" to use the product of those. The problem is: why does this question arise in the first place?
Questions like these come from people who claim that their discipline has something to do with art, something to do with "me, and only me can do that - you can't". Come back to earth, you are providing a SERVICE to others.
This way - and only this way - we developed from "everyone has to gather food on their own" to a society which learned to embrace specialisation over all-rounders.
In Germany they don't teach us coding in school. There are some schools but the most schools aren't. In computer sience we're just learning how to use Word and stuff like that. I would love to learn coding in school. I'm learning myself since years now PHP, MySQL(i) (HTML + CSS) and now I'm learning Java to make apps and later I want to learn JavaScript (jQuery, Ajax) and Python. Me, a 15 year old, found some security issues on the website of my school like XSS. I would love to talk to my friends about programming but no one cares about programming and for me that's sad. I'm the only programmer in my class.
Forever alone ;)
You learn how to use Word in Computer Science? That's is what we learn in IT class in Britain, programming is done in computer science (at a-level it is called computing, we don't do computer science until university).
You're young so don't worry, you'll find some coder-buddies soon enough. Your main problem is your age, i guess.
I think they should spend at least some time on the subject in school. This way young people can decide for themselves if it is something they want to pursue. Writing code has got to be more involving than solving pages of math problems.
And it also can be very fun, I was excited to make a game but I needed trigonometry to make it the way I wanted. In the end I finished my game and relearned trigonometry.
I don't know when it'll happen, but I've thought for a long time that basic coding teaching will happen eventually as a part of childhood education. I mean, it's like he said, learning the basics of code is kind of like learning the basics of math at this point. Less essential than math, sure, but it's becoming more important over time.
Hell, most people probably know some code and they don't even know it. HTML is a kind of code - so is BB code on internet forums ("[]" tags and the like). Granted, that stuff isn't going to compile and run a program from scratch, but my first exposure to code was through HTML and then steadily CSS. And although I'm decent at scripting, I'm still not familiar with object-oriented programming.
But it doesn't matter cause I know enough about how it all works that I can comprehend many of the concepts with little explanation. Without the foundation, people may be needlessly fearful. For example, I know that if a virus gets on my computer and I force it to shut down with the power button, the virus is software-based (not hardware) so it can't do anything until I bring the computer back online (and usually not until the operating system is loaded). It's not like it's going to take over physical control of my computer and turn it back on.
Little things like that might sound stupidly obvious to some people, but if you haven't been exposed to the inner workings at all, then it's easy to end up with false beliefs about how our tech works.
Funnily enough, my first experience with coding was through lego, using the mindstorms kit. You built a program using blocks that contained if functions and loops etc...
Computer programming is much more useful than at least half the subject taught in high school. We can definitely fit it in.
***** So much wrong. Research and education are two entirely separate things. One finds NEW knowledge. Other one teaches old knowledge. Big difference.
It would be wonderful if it did, but it doesn't. It forces people to learn, doesn't teach how to do it. I had to figure that one out on my own time. Passion for learning can't be taught. Either a person has passion or they don't. It may come at a later stage in life, but it most certainly can't be instilled as a matter of course.
When I first got into programming, I was overjoyed. I was taught this method of creating something that is so convenient, and require so little hand skill and tools. And the satisfaction of working out bugs is just immense. I'm grateful that I've learned programming back then cause I am constantly using it in my studies (Mechanical Engineering).
I think coding is a great way to let students know how computers work, but you have to make it interesting. I think taking a more mechatronics approach will better suit that purpose, as there are physical interactions as well as digital interactions. You can have one team programming in Java for a controller app on the android, and have another team program in C for the robot.
Anyone who hasn't written a program by the time they have signed up for a university computer course is probably not that into it and will probably drop out. Anyone interested in programming can learn it easily at home on their home computer for free.
Public class comment{
Public static void main(string [] args){
System.out.println("java is the best language ever!");
}
}
Only in HTML and CSS.
Teaching most anyone to program is ridiculous. If they're capable, they'll learn on their own.
Coding, however, is something anyone can learn.
I can code on my graphing calculator.
I think an introduction with something like Scratch would be a great way to introduce how computers work to all children. I really agree, too many people view computers as "magical" and have no understanding of how they work.
Another way of phrasing this question could be "Should everybody learn to program?", which I think may be easier for most people to say "Yes" to. Today there's so many ways to program, and thinking in terms of a programmer is perhaps a more important category than simply 'being able to code'. Just as the use of high-level programming languages is a quantum leap above now-archaic forms of computer operation, such tape and punch cards, so now we are seeing a proliferation of graphical interfaces which allow people to program without coding. It's a progression into ever higher levels of abstraction and it allows millions of people to configure and optimize their own experience of the internet and the web-enabled devices that they use. So yes, coding is, and will probably always be an important part of Programming, but right now it is a sub-set of programming. Thus, the right question might be "should kids be learning how to program?" For me the answer is easy. Yes.
IT, using computers, is already mandatory up to GCSE level but sadly computer science is not, we are teaching people to read but not to write, you don't need to teach English students to write literary masterpieces but they still need simple writing/literature, each school should give the option to do computer science but not make it mandatory.
Coding definitely should be self-taught, that's the best way to understanding it, and learning it beyond what is taught. What I used to do is find snippets, scripts and other code, look through how each part of the code achieves an effect, and work off that.
Most self taught programmers write horrible code.
This man should replace Michael Gove.
What really rankles me is how many people are so ill-informed that they assume and believe that programmers, (or anyone interested in science, technology, engineering, or mathematics), generally comprise a list of subhuman stereotypes, and consequently ridicule and belittle us. It's much better once we reach adulthood, because there are often opportunities to avoid people who do so, but there are now many such adults too, and some have influence over public policies, so it might just be avoiding the problem. If we could instill the importance of programming at an early age, maybe there'd be less of a stigma surrounding it... and hopefully a bit less violence and psychological torture as a result.
I don't think they should, it pays too well right now, if more people learn it, the less programmers are worth, I'm not sharing
***** I know that, I was joking saying I want to keep it to myself
Teach them BASIC Pseudo code
Every time you suggest that people should learn BASIC, Dijkstra finds the quickest way to turn in his grave!
Seriously, any language whose name was ever spelled with only uppercase letters is unsuitable as a first programming language. Well, maybe LISP is an exception. But these days, it's safer to stick with PPR (Perl, Python, Ruby) due to their lack of verbosity (allowing students to see clearly what the important parts are) and availability of a REPL environment for testing small sections of code. Of course, they're not the best languages out there, but they're easy to get a feel of.
no. Pseudo-code will just leave them with nothing. Better to teach them something they might actually use and see the results of and be the cause of.
Teach them to program a few basic program functions (takes nearly no time) in a couple three languages, like a few lines of code in sql to give an application database functionality, maybe program a graphical calculator in C# or Java, and then perhaps a picture viewer in C++. The rest can be more about software systems so that they at least know how things relate to one another and are composed of, although they might not know exactly how to code it.
yes we have this in greece
I just love his accent
computer code today is like latin 700 years ago
No one else annoyed by the blinds in the background?
My own short answer: Not every person should learn to code, but more of them should.
I'm not a programmer at all, however, I do know how to code and I can program some logic codes. It really helps to know the basics, because, as you said, you can see the world in a computational way.
I've learned C, C++, Common Lisp, Python and a few others. The best way to learn to program is reading good source code and having your work mercilessly ripped apart in an IRC group. Not dancing through the flowers in PHP and HTML5. Not everyone should learn to program, only those who are interested in how computers work should learn. And enough Java already. I'm tired of it being taught like a religion in college. The way it never lets the user deviate from OOP is nauseating and hand-binding.
I would take it one step further, i don't think schools are putting enough energy into teaching kids how things interact. Your lego example is great but lego has hardly no resemblance to the real world as it is.
- How does an elevator work... (I used to believe there was a motor pulling the whole weight of the cage, no counterweight involved)
- What makes the lights go on in your room... I never spent much thought about it until i started learning about Electronics.
- What is the internet really? Most people just see it as a bunch of cables spanning the globe but there is so much more to it...
And it's explained just briefly in school but fancy images and text is no match for practical experience. Build your own elevator, hook up your own lighting system (low voltage of course) and build your own digital network (doesn't have to be fancy)
Then kids will have a greater appreciation for what all this technology actually brought them.
And how easily it all can fail and leave the world without and back to stone age standards.
how often have we heard (or said this ourselves when we were young!) about some topic of maths: "when am i ever going to need this!??" well, having some skills in maths helps us with problem solving and logic - skills that are necessary for everyday life. for the same reason, coding should also be introduced in school (at what year level or to what extent is another discussion). but it's not unreasonable to expect pupils to have a basic understanding + appreciation of programming by the time they finish high school.
Computer science was included in schools when I was young. What happened? Back then, of course, if you were going to use the computer at all, you were probably going to have to do some programming. When you first turned the machine on, it was waiting for you to type in a program.
I think it would be cool if it was a standard elementary / primary school course for kids to learn some dialect of BASIC, or perhaps JavaScript, which is the current CS-101 language of choice. Just the basics of variables, loops, functions, operators, and flow control. Probably it would be easy to introduce objects too, which are actually closer to the intuitive way we think of real-world objects. Inculcating these skills early will result in smarter brains with a better capacity to analyze systems.
Real code is too advanced at this young age. They wouldn't appreciate what you can do with it. However, I think using something like scratch.mit.edu/ at this age would get kids to be interested in coding (mostly cause you make games with).
I started writing code (BASIC) at 10 years old, just simple games and things. Didn't start writing 6502 assembler till I was 15 or so. I had to figure out so much by myself. If only the internet had existed in 1977...
honestly I think we should be taught about computer programming from a young age. I'm a university student who first came across programming in my second year, and it was remarkable to me how ignorant I have been to the workings of computers. I mean, I use these machines every day of my life and I never really understood wtf was actually going on. we can't expect our children to continue living their lives unaware of what is happening behind the scenes in a mobile phone/laptop because they'll be under the impression that it's some sort of magical /mystical device
I think kids should be taught logic. It really doesn't matter if that is through an Arduino or PC or even on paper. The skills that kids learn in logical thinking will make them better decision makers in whatever career they choose later in life. In terms of learning all the syntax for a real programming language so they can code for real, that's only really important for the kids that want to become programmers.
This is sort of why maths is important to kids as it trains them to think in a particular way. But just as kids could be turned off by maths I think kids could be turned off by coding. This is why I think just logic should be taught, which can be introduced in inventive ways that kids can engage with and help them to make decisions.
Probably, but just don't rely on the public schooling industry. (Actually, that applies to almost any worthwhile activity.)
We should sort out the teaching of grammar in this country before we start teaching anything about coding. The primary school teachers that are already supposed to be teaching this don't actually know it themselves.
There's already a country in the world that produces an inordinate amount of really bad programmers. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.
I would love to learn programing however every time I try, it take a very long time to write a program that is under 100 lines. Very frustrating to know that another person new to programing would have done the project in two weeks. I know this because the project was from Stanford online computer course. It took me three months of writing bad code.
Learning to code changed your mind. You develop new neurological pathways that allow you to build logic models on the fly. If more people had the ability to apply that to every day life the world would be a much more beautiful place.
I think everybody should understand it enough so that if I explain something I did on a computer they would comprehend rather than just nodding and moving on. It should be like writing a book: everyone knows how to do it, but only some do it for a living, and those who do are good at it.
You know I also do programming and dont neccesarily like math, the way I learn it is by thinking about how the math could help me program something and then I at least have a practical use for it. In normal math class it's just do this plus that and then you get more numbers without seeing any practical thing on a screen or anything, not for me.
Learning to code is more about learning to manage complexity. How to reason about systems of processes. A huge part of our every day lives is to manage systems of processes that depend on each other, that conflict with each other, that influence each other at a distance in a spooky way.
Understanding things in such a systematic way allows us to make sense of consequences that may or may not look like a direct result of any one process.
This reminds me of an episode of Brady and CGP Grey's podcast Hello Internet.
They should really be pushing Personal Finances long before computer coding
I say that every normal human being already knows how to code (in some sense). We just need to make them understand that they do.
I like this video, I'm doing computing at uni in September, didn't get the chance to do it at A-level. I think its a good idea
i thought the same thing although i dont really know how to code i do know how it works not every one has to learn how to code but should understand somethings about it
I learned to program my TI-84+ on the spot while in hight school.
Yes. If somewhere in the future nobody understands how to code we have a problem.
Lego YAY!
its not just that, but so people can think of problems in a computational way.
I love his accent and appreciate his thoughts ^^
Video should've ended at 0:09
yes, for the same reason that I had to read shakespear in grade 12 as a programmer.
We teach kids basics of flight (lift, drag, power, etc.) in physics classes but we don't expect everyone to be a pilot.
Educating people about how the world works keeps them from filling in the gaps of their knowledge with baseless crap.Thus you have people afraid to buy things online because someone told them it was unsafe vs. them having an understanding at a high level of why it's less risky than crossing the street to a shop.
And filling gaps with baseless crap is precisely what woo-woo pushers do best.
I support the idea that coding should (or at least could) be an accessible, widely taught subject in public school, even if the development of future professional coders is not the objective. It can touch on logic, design, decision making, math, art, music or whatever else people can imagine engaging with code. (Look at Bjork's Biophilia project for schools to see what I mean). It's not hard to consider familiarity with coding as a general kind of literacy for our technological society. Just as critical reading skills can help you be a discerning citizen (and not necessarily a professional critic), so too could knowledge of coding (and programming in general) help you to be a more empowered and discerning citizen in all aspects of our technological society. Many of the commenters on this thread reject the idea because they think it will create more competition and devalue their current earning potential. I think they're just being selfish, elitist babies. Who knows what millions of kids might do under the influence of coding and various types of programmable interfaces at their fingertips? What might they create or imagine? The last thing they're going to be thinking about is going out to replace you at your job.
Learning languages at an early stage of your life is a must. It is a lot easier to grasp the fundamentals when your young. Technical skills and programming will not suit everybody but implementing fun ways to grasp the basics should ensure that those that are keen and talented have the resources to go all the way.. Good interview ... thanks
I wish we could've learnt some programming in school. I'm just finishing a degree in physics and some programming knowledge would have been really useful. It's hard to learn it by yourself when it's completely new.
Be glad you hadnt my teacher, he did more harm than anything. 90% of his teaching was: type what I have written down in your pc and it will work. That truely helps.
Well I've had to learn to code essentially on the job, and it has been a fun journey, but it's also given me appreciation of exactly how fragile software really is as a system, and I find that a bit scary :P
Comal 80 was the thing! :D
I was born in '97 but my first programming experience was with BASIC on an old Commodore 64 and i'm still in the process of learning various languages. Mostly just plain C and assembler for my university course but my point is that programming at a young age, even if I didn't understand it all, really made me see the world of technology differently.
I am not sure if it would work, but I would love to see more programmers. I do wonder why most people don't have a passion for programming, but maybe it doesn't rock their world. Knowledge can't be forced though, everyone hated math at school and maybe everyone will hate programming if it's forced (while they are beautiful outside of the context of school). And I was always self-taught, learned much more about programming at home than school or university.
And I still haven't started watching the video :)
Coding as form of literture studies , should be interesting too , to look at the codings of famousworks , how they acomplished them and how the coding language they used helped ,
"Maybe" the best answer EVER!
if everyone was forced to learn it, then where could I make my money? But it should be a course that's available at least.
Am I the only one around here that feels the deep and boiling urge to fix the prof's window blinds?
Understanding the collective technological extensions of humanity is indeed necessary.
Brady, you don't think planes are amazing? :-(
I don't think anyone should be forced to learn things they don't want.
oh god please implement that NOW
people think that, that whole "programming business" is easy and hence undermine your job.
Not even started watching the video but YES, everybody (EVERYBODY) should learn some sort of coding.
After i learned some simple programming i immediately gained a deeper insight into what makes a computer tick. Knowing that i also learned to adapt to ever changing situations because i am aware of what's actually going on behind the scenes.
Further more, i could take my knowledge of programming (logical, sequential thinking) with me into the real world and apply it there. Suddenly, machines and interactions in general became more "digitized" for me. You have to do A before you do B but it doesn't matter if you do C or D after that as long as you do E.
I would argue most programmers don't know how computers work either. They use high level languages just as mindlessly as lay-people use applications. I'll bet that someone who uses AutoCAD could just as easily learn to use MatLab.
If you really want to appreciate computers and computer programs, you should not learn high-level programming, you should learn about digital circuits, digital memory, boolean algebra, and assembly language. There are obvious reasons why this kind of introduction is not for everyone, but it is a necessary step to distinguish skilled programmers from amateurs.
He is wrong. It requires mental capacity which few people have. Like it or not, much of humanity is obsolete at this point. Coding, maths, science depend on the same mental capacity, which is something people are born with.
If everybody is taught useless crap like history, they should definitely know at least some of the basics of computing. It's the modern world, we realy on computers. So everybody should know something about how they work
This is a very important subject. I graduated High School back in 1999 and had a lot of advantages that most people STILL don't have. I took both intro to computer programming in 11th grade and then computer programming AP in highschool. I also had the advantage that my father was a developer for Intel at the time.
Basically I knew I wanted to be a programmer but a lot of my college friends in the same program hated it and wished that had done something else because they didn't know what it involved at that time.
Most professions people know what they do without doing it themselves, programmers most people know they work with computers, but that's all the seem to know.
I was lucky to be offered a half year of BASIC and a half year of FORTRAN in junior year of high school. The only real programming so far in college Mechanical Engineering has been a single semester of C. I think at least a semester of basic programming logic should be had in every high school just the same way as something like a general algebra class is required.
everybody should learn electrical engineering too then.
Im a programmer who kinda wants to learn that, any guides where to start?
"Mathematics is the language of science"
Hear hear.
Ugh, There should have been a third time with the LEGO's where they didn't topple over. Haha, no seriously (heavily breathing and trembling from OCD).
Center the tower on the front-back axis (POV from the camera). The tower should have no deviations on the front-back axis. Too little support is there. Deviation the left is not advisable as there is no support there, unless of course counterweight is added to the right of the plaquet, plate. There is however still a small problem there, there's just a 2x2 connection between the tower and platelet. This might not suffice.
Deviation to the right is possible within reason , again the 2x2 connection is a problem.
Also remember 3 words: foundation, foundation, foundation!
When the plate is put on a hard floor instead of carpet more daring designs could be pursued.
When on carpet, the initial indentation of the carpet caused by the weight of the tower will cause the tower to topple over easier.
The other side of the platelet will not indent the carpet as much therefore the tower will have a slight initial lean angle which causes the torque around the base caused by gravity to increase. This torque will then lift the right side of the platelet which in turn will increase the lean angle, etc. Resulting in a toppled over tower.
These are all the options similar to the option as the one shown in the video. (Without altering the height or placement of the tower on the plate too much. )
BTW Yes I said platelet, plaquet and plate. It bothers me too that i don't have a single accurate description of this thing. Platelet seems to have a too medical connatation. Plaquet seems also innacurate as it usually has something written on it which differentiates it from a normal plate. (also i dought the spelling of the word).
Plate is too big, it doesn't express the small size of the plate enough.
My most sincere apologies for being so off-topic.
Some Python for everyone!
Does it count as coding if I use a system that creates a result by connecting nodes and wires together to produce results? Such as "Blueprints" in Unreal Engine 4. It's visual, I'm an Artist.
I wrote my first program in secondary school using macros in Excel. Not because we were told to do it in class, but because I wanted to do it and really enjoyed it. If I had known about text-based programming back then, I would have chosen to do computer science at university instead of the course I'm currently doing.
I think it's an injustice to children to not at least give them an understanding of what programming is before they choose what they wanna do with their lives.
What would have happened if the man bought the pressure cooker and the woman the rucksack?
I think people should be taught how basic computers and systems work, both to get a fuller understanding of other subjects, and to understand the importance of security with computers.
Kids should also be taught programming so they don't think all code is a black-box for only 'nerds' to look at, and see it as a career path if nothing else. They could learn that computers aren't secure, and that it is very hard to make them secure, so you should be extremely careful with your information on computers. People assume programmers make things extremely secure, and that their info is fine on most websites, though as much as I wish it was true, it's not, even with large websites like for banks.
Personally, it helped me understand math and science a whole lot better. I could understand complex systems of formulas better because I understood the concept of using formulas and variables in programming at a younger age than when I had to use them in school. It also let me write programs to graph, observe and interact with mathematics and physics. Writing those programs let me see what would happen if I removed a part of a formula or algorithm, and then understand better why it is there.
Modern Windows (95 and newer) and similar "user friendly" operating systems have actually taken us a step backwards in this area. Anyone who used a computer in the 80's and even early 90's had to learn certain concepts in either DOS or BASIC. While not full fledged "coding," it kept users closer to what was going on than the shiny GUIs we use today. Many of us, myself included, actually took some interest in programming when BASIC was standard as either the interface (Commodore, Apple II, Timex/Sinclair, etc.,) or included in DOS. Once BASIC, and eventually any text based interface, was taken away or hidden from the common user, any concept of how the computer works was left entirely foreign to new users.
The computers in our schools are ancient... And this is NYC we are talking about XD