[LINK] Let's pause before drinking the 'coding in schools' Kool-Aid

[Bernard Robertson-Dunn]

<brd>
There is far more to technology, in general, and Information Systems in 
particular, than coding. And when it comes to the use of technology, 
knowledge of coding isn't even relevant.

Looks to me like a "We must do something about STEM education. Here is 
something. Let's do it" approach rather than the result of a bit of 
analysis and thinking.
</brd>

Let's pause before drinking the 'coding in schools' Kool-Aid
Patrick Keneally

Wednesday 3 June 2015 10.47 AEST
The Guardian
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jun/03/lets-pause-before-drinking-the-coding-in-schools-kool-aid

Is the call for all kids to learn coding the modern equivalent of 
mandatory Japanese? Predicting the future is a mug’s game – there should 
be no place for it in education
binary code

‘Coding’s advocates argue that children need to learn the skill or risk 
being left behind in the future workforce. But, they are wrong (or 
probably wrong) both about the future and about the need for coding to 
become a basic skill alongside literacy and numeracy.’ Photograph: 
Andrey Prokhorov/Getty Images


Teaching coding to school students has won some pretty heavyweight 
supporters over the past couple of weeks. Bill Shorten, Malcolm Turnbull 
and Tony Abbott now all think students from primary school upwards 
should be taught to code – getting little fingers busy with C++ or 
Python is becoming something of a political cause celebre in Australia. 
But as always, it’s worth a pause to think before taking a large gulp of 
the Kool-Aid.

“Coding is the literacy of the 21st century,” Shorten said in his budget 
reply speech. Malcolm Turnbull, not to be outdone, the next day said: 
“If we want to succeed, and continue to succeed as a prosperous 
first-world economy ... the key tool for that is coding.”

And now Tony Abbott, despite ridiculing the idea at first (“Does he want 
to send them all out to work at the age of 11?” he asked), has jumped on 
the coding bandwagon.

Coding’s advocates argue that children need to learn the skill or risk 
being left behind in the future workforce. In the dystopian society they 
envisage, machines have taken over most jobs and humans are left idle – 
except for those who know how to code. But, they are wrong (or probably 
wrong) both about the future and about the need for coding to become a 
basic skill alongside literacy and numeracy.

Way back in 1993, when I was starting high school, a teacher of mine 
boldly predicted that learning to type was a waste of time because, by 
the time we left school, voice recognition would have replaced typing. 
Now, while voice recognition is available and works, sort of (take Siri 
for example), he was obviously talking out of his hat. Every decent job 
I have had has been in front of a keyboard. Typing at 100wpm would have 
been a pretty useful skill. In fact, typing is now taking over from 
handwriting in schools. Finland, one of the insufferable overachievers 
of the education world, is now phasing out handwriting classes in favour 
of keyboard skills.

Predicting the future is always a mug’s game, but even more so in education.

In the late 80s/early 90s, a generation of schoolchildren, including me, 
were taught Japanese. The country at that time was an economic titan, 
and the fastest growing source of trade and foreign investment in 
Australia. It was a safe bet that learning Japanese would be a valuable 
skill, but for the rest of the decade Japan fell into a decade of 
economic malaise – and while still being a useful skill, learning 
Japanese was no ticket to instant prosperity.

It’s possible that teaching coding could fall into a similar trap. What 
is a valuable skill in the workforce right now may not be in 20 years. 
In the absence of being able to accurately predict which skills will be 
in demand in the future workforce, surely it makes more sense to build 
broad generalist skills of numeracy and literacy in the early years, 
rather than concentrate on the narrower skill of coding.

The New York Times columnist and Nobel prize-winning economist, Paul 
Krugman, recently wrote that a growing number of economists are 
wondering whether the technology revolution has been greatly overhyped – 
one great big “meh” in other words. Technology was supposed to bring us 
liberation from mundane labour, but instead we are as occupied as ever 
with work; and despite technological innovation surging forward, 
productivity and wages growth are stagnating in most of the western 
world. Malcolm Turnbull’s claim that coding is the key tool to unlock 
future prosperity for Australia might sound visionary, but it’s not 
supported by the economic data.

But, as many coding supporters point out, what is the damage of teaching 
the skill to students if in fact the predictions that we are on the edge 
of a new machine age dominated by 3D printing and artificial 
intelligence come true? Shouldn’t we arm our students with that 
knowledge just in case?

Well, as Krugman writes: “talking breathlessly about how technology 
changes everything might seem harmless, but, in practice, it acts as a 
distraction from more mundane issues.”

In education, that includes issues such as failing schools, poor 
teaching quality, lack of specialist support for students with a 
disability, the increasing shift away from comprehensive publicly funded 
schools to private education, poor international rankings in literacy 
and numeracy, and countless other real, and very difficult issues, that 
confront Australia’s education system.

Sorting out those problems will take much more than a few lines of code.

Some kids will certainly grow up and want to learn coding, either in 
high school or universities, but the best way to ensure they can do this 
is to offer a decent, broad-based education in the early years. Others 
may not want to learn coding, and that’s because they’ll be onto 
learning something else, something that we haven’t even heard of yet – 
and no amount of predicting the future and hothousing them in today’s 
most desirable skills will get them ready for whatever that may be.

-- 

Regards
brd

Bernard Robertson-Dunn
Sydney Australia
email: brd at iimetro.com.au
web:   www.drbrd.com
web:   www.problemsfirst.com
Blog:  www.problemsfirst.com/blog