Should coding be required in school?

[Jason]

Should advanced coding be required in grades below college? How about only elementary coding? How about in college or university? Should there be coding requirements?

 

[Jamie]

I keep hearing about illiteracy in regards to computers in general with the younger generation, so I think pushing more IT skills in general can only be a good thing. Of course, coding is not for everybody but I definitely think it should be taught in schools. Even if it does not lead to anything career-wise (or spark any kind of passion), the problem-solving skills and solution-oriented thinking are worth it alone and apply in other aspects of life.

 

[Tracy]

Really? No.. I can see intro coding in junior or senior high school to introduce students that might be interested (as an elective)... but honestly... the large majority of society has NO use for any computer related coding at all.
Now, if you want to teach "How to use a computer 101", that is a different matter and has nothing to do with coding.

 

[Ravenfreak]

I think it should be a requirement in schools these days. Heck I wish it was when I was growing up, but when I was young computers were super expensive to own and I didn't get one until I was 16 and even then it was a outdated HP Pavilion my grandmother had purchased in 1998, so it was about 8 years old at that point.

 

[Arantor]

Firmly agree that general digital literacy classes should be absolutely standard: how to look for dodgy websites, how to basically use Word, Excel etc.

Programming though... there's really honestly no need to teach that as a mandatory course. Not even sure it's that useful as an elective before you start hitting high school age because anyone that would likely be interested would already be hard at it, and anyone not exposed to it much before that is going to have trouble getting started precisely because their peers will already be ahead of them.

It's like me when I took my A-Level in Computing in 2002. The class was half people who'd never done programming before and half people who were already quite capable in their own way (whether that was with Klik 'n' Play / The Games Factory or full on Visual Basic) - the teachers had to make a choice whether to focus on those with minimum experience and just let the more advanced folks do their own thing, or focus on the advanced folks and let everyone else fend for themselves. (They chose to focus on the folks with minimum experience, so most computing classes for me were a free hour to do basically whatever I wanted)

 

[Tracy]

The class was half people who'd never done programming before and half people who were already quite capable in their own way

This is what killed in back when I was in taking some classes in programming in Junior College "back in the day". Your intro was programming in Basic... I had already written programs for my CoCo 2 (first with the cassette then with the might floppy) that allowed me to save calls for service from when I was working security for an apartment complex and then print the reports out each month to turn in. Got bored real quick with the basics they were teaching and simply dropped the class as I was basically working 2 jobs (one 8 hour and the other was 16 hours on call except for the two days off I had and then it was 24 hours on call) so I wasn't really interested in wasting my time.

 

[Arantor]

Oh, I'd been writing programs for the ZX Spectrum (and other machines, including some in assembly) long before I got to college. It was sufficiently awkward that by the third class, the teacher was 'why are you even here, you know the material'. The answer, of course, 'because I need a piece of paper that says I know the material'.

 

[Tracy]

because I need a piece of paper that says I know the material'

That was my issue... even back in the mid 80's I realized what a boon computers were going to be...but I am NOT a patient person and got bored and dropped the class but without it I couldn't get the "next" class... ended up for the good as I was able to go to work in government IT from my self-taught skills and made a decent salary and VERY good retirement benefits. You don't go into government for big money (paydays)... you do it for the future retirement benefits... both my spouse and I were in government work... we made decent money.. we have a VERY comfortable retirement (we both in/around 60) and retired in our mid-50's from both government provided retirement and secondary retirement savings (with the agencies we worked for putting some into the kitty also).

 

[Arantor]

Government work doesn't pay like that here, not even then, especially not now, unless you're actively in the government itself (and not the surrounding bureaucracy).

Though the impatience thing I fully get - it's one of the reasons I don't tend to bother with video tutorials for anything, I just tend to dive in and experiment, especially with code.

 

[Tracy]

Government work doesn't pay like that here

Well, when I first started as a Police Officer.. I was taking home a "whole" $782 USD a month (still got my pay stubs in one of my boxes). Once I moved up the metroplex... the pay was SUBSTANTIALLY more. By the time I retired (about 8 years ago) I was making around $89K a year... and retirement at 55 at a target level of $5800 a month.

I was the same way in high school... once I learned something, I was ready to go onwards... that was pre-AP classes.
My 2nd year in high school I was taking Biology 1, Biology 2 and Algebra 1 classes. Wanted to take Chem 1, but they wouldn't let me... and passed all of them.

 

[Arantor]

I don't even earn $89k a year. Neither does my wife. (Allowing for currency exchange and different cost of living.) Heck, I don't even earn $5800 a month before taxes.

Now that I think about it when I started out in office work 20+ years ago I was earning less than £1000 a month before tax... the world really is not the same now.

 

[Cory]

I don't see the use of learning coding in school because coding is a specific topic that not everyone is going to commit to. Do they teach you how to do fast food or retail in school, which is a common first job among young people? I think teaching coding is in the same principle, where it's not a requirement or even of great significance for a vast amount of people to know. Some people don't even care for computers, but I think basic computer skills should still be taught in school as they've become a large part of daily life these days.

 

[Empire]

I think a basic introduction to computational thinking and programming, data retrieving and the web is as important today as physics, chemistry, math, history etc. in order to understand the world we are living in.

Programming does not need to be hard and it does not need to include math, just some logic (I know - I teach at the IT University and other places). Most people can learn enough to grasp the basics.

 

[Debashis]

Should advanced coding be required in grades below college? How about only elementary coding? How about in college or university? Should there be coding requirements?

I feel it's a must in today's world to make your life easier at work! You can save tons of man hours and utilize that time in something more productive.