Opinions Divided About Current Push To Teach More Children Programming

In a Washington Post (9/23, Basulto) opinion piece, Dominic Basulto, a New York City blogger, illustrates how governments across the country and around the world are creating education programs to teach children how to code computers in order to meet the increased demand for people with such skills. New York City, Chicago, and San Francisco have all introduced or will soon introduce programs like this. New York City’s “Computer Science For All” initiative will make computer science education accessible to students in all of the city’s public schools. Australia and the UK are both adding computer science to the elementary school curriculum.         More Coding In Schools Has Pros And Cons. In aMiami Herald (9/22, Futterman) opinion piece, Laurie Futterman, a science teacher, reviews arguments from proponents and critics of the current push by more schools to teach programming to students. Futterman quotes advocates of such programs who emphasize that programming jobs are in high demand and programming is an easy, exciting way for children to become more interested in other STEM fields. Futterman also quotes critics of the current push who say elementary schools need to focus on teaching children more basic skills like reading and writing. Other critics say that leaders and educators are overestimating how many people will need programming skills in their future jobs by falsely equating the increased use of technology with an increased need to understand how it works.