Why aren't children taught the basics of computer programming in 2013?

[Quantum Windbag]

For the rest of mankind's future, we will be living in a digital computer age. Computers are necessary for modern economies, societies and most importantly, self-defense.

I consider basic knowledge of computers as important as basic knowledge of firearms. There are over one billion users of iphones and other handheld computational devices, yet you can rarely find one person on the street that even understands how they operate.

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I want to explain how I got started with computer programming, and ways your kids might also become familiar with.

Around the year 2003, when I was 13, a video game titled "Warcraft III, Reign of Chaos" was released, with a "Map Editor" which included a "Trigger Editor" which basically allowed you to program your own virtual realities and ideas into you own custom map. The proper term for this is called "scripting."

The GUI (graphic user interface) of the Warcraft Map Editor taught me the very basics of programming: You need an EVENT, a set of CONDITIONS (to limit the event) and an ACTION. In the most simple terms, cause and effect.

By the year 2007 I was full computer guru, self-taught in mathematics, linear algebra (necessary for computers), intro-calculus, programming and also physics, which was necessary to understand the actual physical processes of computers.

Yes, by the time I was 17, I had all this knowledge, none of it taught in school, nor was any of it that complicated. I remember a kid a few years ago at my job who was amazed I was tutoring intro calc, under the assumption I was a "genius." Then he took a calc course last spring and got a B+ without doing half his homework.

Really, learning isn't hard, if you apply yourself.
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Back to the main topic:
Everyone needs to learn how to program computers in at least one standard scripting language before graduating high school.

It is vital to the self defense of both the individual and the nation, as it allows you to identify and prevent cyber attacks by criminals and governments and foreign enemies, and if the Militia were ever to be activated to defend us against invasion, computer programming skills go a long way in guided weaponry and other weapons and defense systems. You won't always be able to rely on satellites and mega-power grids (thus you can't always expect the internet to be accessible) if there' ever a large conflict between modern nations.

If you knew anything about coding you would know you don't know what the fuck you are talking about.

 

[aaronleland]

I got basic programming in HS.

If you want to really teach your kids, get them to want to and then teach them yourself.

public schools will always be behind the times

Easiest way to teach your kids is to do it in a fun environment.

I taught myself programming from Warcraft III map editor which used JASS script. Learning how to script in video games (custom map making) eventually led me into the entire realm of programming.

I have always been in to the tech side of Computers, but have wanted to get more into programming. I understand what you mean by Warcraft 3. Elder Scrolls: Morrowind had a similar editor. Maybe I should finally check out Warcraft 3 now.

 

[midcan5]

Having taught programming as well as other skills to mostly handicapped or under privileged children the interest is simply not there. Programming like lots of skills is natural to the person and while you can teach a bit of it, most students are soon bored and want to get on with whatever it is they deem important.

Also ask why is hard science not taught, or civics classes, or sex education, or ethics, or the humanities? Americans fight whatever does not agree with their worldview. Take note of online teaching, homeschooling, and Christian schools. Look at curriculum control in the mostly red states.

"I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time-when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the key manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness.

The dumbing down of America is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30 second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance. As I write, the number-one videocassette rental in America is the movie Dumb and Dumber. "Beavis and Butt head" remain popular (and influential) with young TV viewers. The plain lesson is that study and learning-not just of science, but of anything-are avoidable, even undesirable." Carl Sagan 'The Demon-Haunted World'