Reading 14: Computer Science Education
Every day, people everywhere make use of their computer at work, their personal computer at home, and the computer in their pocket. Yet, most of these people don’t understand on a fundamental level how these objects work, let alone how to program them themselves. Computers and coding have become the bedrock of modern innovation, and they will be for the foreseeable future as humanity goes deeper and deeper into machine learning and artificial intelligence. I think, therefore, that there is absolutely need for better education in computer science for kids in high school.
Personally, I do not believe that coding is the new literacy. The impact of literacy, as stated by one of the articles, causes power in society to shift away from those who are illiterate to those who are literate. I do not believe that power will shift away from people who don’t know how to code; not everyone needs to know how to code to do their job. It’s for this reason I don’t see coding as the new literacy. However, I do believe that everyone should be exposed to a computer science class in high school. While coding is a skill that is not required for every profession, it certainly has the potential to benefit all professions. In addition, being exposed to computer science in high school can help students find interests and passion, whereas before they may not have realized that they have an affinity for coding. It is the same with sciences currently taught in high school today: Biology and chemistry are not required for every profession, but they garner interest among students and can inspire them to go on to become doctors or researchers, benefiting society.
The arguments for introducing everyone to programming are the following: As we know, the tech industry grows day by day, and there are every increasingly more jobs that need skilled software engineers. Introducing everyone to programming will increase interest in the area, leading to more people getting degrees in computer science, benefiting themselves with great compensation, the tech industry with quality employees (or other industries as well), and society by providing more innovation. The arguments against introducing everyone to programming are the following: programming may not be a relevant or necessary skill for a lot of jobs, not is everyone going to have an affinity or interest in it. Today, scores in already existing subjects such as math and reading are extremely low, thus it makes more sense to work to improve those areas rather to add an entirely new one. Additionally, attempting to teach everyone how to program is very costly, and will cost the federal and state governments huge amounts of money. On top of that, it is difficult to find people willing to teach computer science in school, as someone with a computer science degree is more likely to go into industry where they will enjoy better compensation. The biggest challenge that schools will face as this CS4All push moves forward is getting the necessary funding and finding qualified, interested teachers to educate the youth in programming.
However, despite these arguments against, I still believe that computer science should fit into K-12 education as a required class in high school. Making it a required course in high school will create huge amounts of interest from students who would have never known if they would like it. I am an example of this: I never took a computer science class in high school, as it was not required, so I was never interested in it or realized that I was decent at it until I took a class in college. Taking the class opened my eyes and realized that I had a future in computer science. Unfortunately, many kids who would have loved computer science won’t have the opportunity to pursue it because it’s not currently required. I don’t think that computer science should replace another class, but it should absolutely be an addition in the required curriculum. In terms of what should actually be taught in the CS4All curriculum, I think it should focus around computational thinking with hands-on programming exercises and practice. Focusing on these areas will provide a better platform for kids in computer science: It will help them understand what kinds of problems they can solve using programming and how they can solve them, and then provide real exercises where they can solve these problems by writing code.
I do believe that anyone can learn to program. While it is certainly true that some people have natural (or unnatural, if you will) skill at programming, I believe that everyone is capable, given the right environment in which they learn. I see it as no different than doing math or reading: some people will obviously be better than others, but everyone can do it. Just not everyone will be great at it, and that’s ok! That’s how education is right now. Everyone learns how to do math, how to read, and learns about the natural sciences, but not everyone is great at them. I just think, like these others things, everyone should have an opportunity where they can learn to program. Not everyone will be great, but everyone can do it, and giving people the opportunity, when they normally wouldn’t have the opportunity, is when they discover a passion that they may not have discovered before. And just like any other passion, a passion for computer science can lead to benefits for the individual person, the economy, and society as a whole.
