When attending primary school in New York City, I remember having computers in the classrooms and even a “computer literacy” class. While the intentions were good, most of the time the class used it to paint pictures on a canvas and not actually learn how to use the computer. On top of that, most of my problem-solving skills came from ridiculous math problems that do not have any real-world applications.
Moving on to high school, there were minimal computer science courses. There was actually only one course in the school I attended and it was an advanced placement course that was rather difficult to get into because it was provided once a semester and only one class a day. So on any given year, there would be about 60 students( in a school of 3500+) that would even get a chance to learn computer science.
In my previous career, I was a program manager for an intervention/enrichment organization. I always believed in providing resources that the school needed and that the children would genuinely enjoy. One of the programs I wanted to bring to the school I last worked at was a computer science program. I thought it would be a good time for students to be exposed to the field. My principal at the time has a very similar idea. During one of the last meetings I had with her and the staff, she told everyone they will be apart of a new initiative that the department of education has started. She was trying to expose the students to a field that in high demand and a field that, ironically, I was also looking into for myself.
The program she wanted to bring to the school is called Computer Science for All (CS4All). It’s an initiative to provide every public school students in New York City with an education in computer science by 2025. This will be provided to each school level (elementary, middle, and high school). The curriculum is scaled down to accommodate the grade level properly. The program also emphasizes on the exposure to individuals who do not make up a large portion of the tech industry. “We also have a diversity problem in tech across the nation: only a quarter of professional computing jobs are held by women, with less than 10% held by African-Americans and Latinos.”
“This initiative speaks to the reality of the world we live in now. From Silicon Alley to Wall Street to the fashion runways, industries all across our city are increasingly relying on new technologies — and are in need of workers with the experience to help them achieve success. Computer science education offers more than job preparation — NYC’s students will learn to think and solve critical problems in a creative way and to understand the technology they use each day.”
The program plans to teach about 5000 teachers over 10 years to service all 1,700 public schools across the five boroughs.
So why the sudden push? It is a direct response to the needs of the city. In New York City, employment in tech has grown by 57% in 2007 and 2014. “The technology industry is among the fastest growing and highest paying sectors in New York City today, representing nearly 300,000 jobs and $30 billion in wages annually.” It has also been projected by the U.S. Department of Labors that by 2020, there will be 1.4 million computer science job openings and U.S universities are only expected to produce about 29% of the graduates to fill these jobs.
In my opinion, the most important benefits this program will provide is that it will students will develop a stringer problem solving and critical/logical thinking skills through computer science that can be applied to anything and everything. “NYC students will learn to think and solve problems in critical, creative, and computational methods; to collaborate and build relationships with peers; to communicate and create with technologies; and to better understand technologies we interact with daily. These skills will be integral to student success in higher education, the 21st-century job market and beyond.”
It may also create opportunities for people in the tech field to teach if they choose to go down that route. I personally would like to return to the education system someday and do something in that nature. With the way our society is growing, the opportunities seem limitless.