Microsoft, Facebook Declare European Kids Clueless About Coding, Too

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Microsoft, Facebook Declare European Kids Clueless About Coding, Too

Posted by Soulskill on Wednesday October 15, 2014 @02:21AM from the at-least-they're-consistent dept.

theodp writes: Having declared U.S. kids clueless about coding, Facebook and Microsoft are now turning their attention to Europe's young 'uns. "As stewards of Europe's future generations," begins the Open Letter to the European Union Ministers for Education signed by Facebook and Microsoft, "you will be all too aware that as early as the age of 7, children reach a critical juncture, when they are learning the core life skills of reading, writing and basic maths. However, to flourish in tomorrow's digital economy and society, they should also be learning to code. And many, sadly, are not." Released at the launch of the European Coding Initiative — aka All You Need is Code! (video) — in conjunction with the EU's Code Week, the letter closes, "As experts in our field, we owe it to Europe's youth to help equip them with the skills they will need to succeed — regardless of where life takes them."

17 of 213 comments (clear)

Min score:

Reason:

Sort:

Apparently by Rinikusu · 2014-10-15 02:23 · Score: 4, Insightful

The only competent coders in the world are the ones who will work for $8/hour.

--
If you were me, you'd be good lookin'. - six string samurai
1. Re:Apparently by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-15 02:33 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  This is an effort to saturate the market so that'll be the case. Nobody believes everyone needs to know how to code and there's no way any but the most tech savvy 7 year olds are even interested at all. If you stuck me in front of a computer to mimic code someone showed me at 7, I'd have thought "okay, great, when is recess?" No way I'd have been able to grasp a lot of the higher level thinking involved. Now it's a career and a passion, but that particular road didn't even start until I hit my early to mid teens. I even took programming in high-school and just absolutely hated it. Sitting in front of crappy macs writing boring basic was just not interesting at all and probably did more harm then good.
2. Re:Apparently by Intrepid+imaginaut · 2014-10-15 03:13 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Yup, why not teach them plumbing, cost me a hundred bucks to have a tap fixed the last day. If everyone was a plumber I'm sure I could have gotten it done for ten.
  This is nothing less than for-profit corporations attempting to interfere with the education system for their own financial gain.
3. Re:Apparently by Forgefather · 2014-10-15 04:05 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  I'm sure that in the middle ages the same thinking was used to justify not teaching peasants how to read. The only book that they needed to read was the Bible and you had your priest that could handle that for you. It was only when reading became common that we learned how dumb it was to let other people read for us.
  Personally I believe that not everyone needs to know how to code, but they do need to be familiar with how code works, and how they interact with it. How many problems occur because people are just ignorant of what their devices are doing? Just look at the celebrity nude photo scandal. Do you think that if the majority of those people understood how their information was stored and what protections were used that they would have been so quick to create and store such photos? To say nothing of how laws surrounding software and computers are thoroughly borked due to judges and politicians having -2 clues between them on how a computer works and how their laws impact computer use.
  Once it became possible for books to be distributed on a large scale, and the written word became a ubiquitous way to transfer information it no longer became possible to live in a modern society without learning to read. The same will be true of computers and code. We try to abstract the difficult parts behind GUIs, but you can no more automate good software design than you can automate the creation of a novel. Understanding of software will be critical to having an advantage in the coming years.
  
  --
  "There are lies, there are damn lies, and there are statistics"
4. Re:Apparently by Opportunist · 2014-10-15 04:24 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  And just like you can't simply pump more people into med school to end up with more doctors, you cannot pump more people into computer schools to get more programmers. Programming isn't middle management, you can't simply take any simpleton and expect them to be able to learn how to do it.
  
  --
  We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
5. Re:Apparently by 0xdeadbeef · 2014-10-15 05:30 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  If you stuck me in front of a computer to mimic code someone showed me at 7, I'd have thought "okay, great, when is recess?"
  Wait, computer time wasn't recess?
  I actually think the ubiquity of computers is the reason CS graduation rates have declined since before the dot com bubble. For the millennials, the magic never wears off because computers were never magical to begin with. And kids don't program for fun as much these days because the distance between what they can write and what they see in AAA video games is astronomical.
  When I started programming I thought I was the shit when I made a 3d cube rotate on a TRS-80. Sure, it was simple, but it wasn't like I was used to seeing 3d computer graphics on a home computer. Graphics like that in The Last Starfighter blew my fucking mind.
Is anyone buying this? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-15 02:24 · Score: 5, Informative

Translation: We need to flood the job market so we can hire cheaper workers. Is anyone actually buying this?
1. Re:Is anyone buying this? by Lunix+Nutcase · 2014-10-15 02:35 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Yes. Politicians.
early age influences by BringsApples · 2014-10-15 02:24 · Score: 4, Interesting

Maybe we should explain how social structure works, and how human desires come into play when mixed with it - rather than teach them how to operate machines.

...oh yeah, the adults have to learn that first...

--
Politics; n. : A religion whereby man is god.
Is the oposite true? by Anonymous Coward · 2014-10-15 02:25 · Score: 5, Funny

As a former European kid, can I declare Microsoft clueless about coding too?
Consumer based economy. by krotscheck · 2014-10-15 02:34 · Score: 5, Insightful

You can't exactly nurture a consumer based economy to support your profits, then complain that it's not producing enough builders.

--
This signature can save you $400 on your car insurance!
1. Re:Consumer based economy. by Lunix+Nutcase · 2014-10-15 02:36 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  Yeah, but paying your employees anything beyond poverty wages is SOCIALISM!!!!!
  Or, you know, it's simply smart business as Henry Ford found out. He made his money back and then some by paying his workers wages higher than he had any necessity to do.
Total bullshit ... by CaptainDork · 2014-10-15 02:36 · Score: 4, Insightful

Dear Europe and America ...
From the Christian Alliance for World Dominance: Your young ones need to learn our stuff.
From the Muslim Alliance for World Dominance: Your young ones need to learn our stuff.
From the Fossil Fuel Alliance for World Dominance: Your young ones need to learn our stuff.
From the Science Alliance for World Dominance: Your young ones need to learn our stuff.
From the Welding Alliance for World Dominance: Your young ones need to learn our stuff. ...

--
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
Fundamentals by clifwlkr · 2014-10-15 02:37 · Score: 5, Insightful

Whatever happened to teaching the kids the fundamentals of math and logic, never mind reading comprehension? Guess what? All of that is far more important to learning to code than the actual code itself. I find it ironic to imply that the kids are lost if they don't start to learn actual code that young. When I started programming, computers weren't even really available to anyone. I had good knowledge of math and logic, and was able to figure it out on my own over 35 years ago, and keep up with 'all of the latest trends' and have quite a successful career.
What I learned that help me do this, was how to learn. Start teaching that, and you will find they are prepared for whatever comes down the line in the future. Stop making automatons.....
Jim
1. Re:Fundamentals by tsa · 2014-10-15 03:17 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  Indeed! It was horrendously bad in the 1990s in the Netherlands. I have a friend who was graduating from 'teaching school' then. She sent me emails riddled with spelling errors and crooked sentences. Amazingly she got her degree no problem. Later, in the early 2000s the govenment finally found out that something had to be done and they settled for a mandatory writing and math test for everyone who wanted to teach 4 - 12 year olds. The majority of the people who took those tests failed miserably. Things have improved a lot since then. My friend also improved and I get messages from her with normal Dutch sentences and well-spelled words. She even teaches dyslectic kids how to read and write now.
  
  --
  -- Cheers!
2. Re:Fundamentals by Lilith's+Heart-shape · 2014-10-15 03:27 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  If people grew up literate, numerate, and capable of logic then our existing society would have no hope of survival. There'd be riots in the streets, and legions of politicians and corporate executives impaled on rebar as if Vlad Tepes had risen from Hell to claim revenge upon the world.
  
  --
  I write sci-fi for metalheads
Re:Read: IT wages in Europe rising by Layzej · 2014-10-15 04:27 · Score: 4, Interesting

I think the MIT Lifelong Kindergarten Group is doing more to address this issue than MS or FB: http://scratch.mit.edu/
With Scratch, you can program your own interactive stories, games, and animations — and share your creations with others in the online community.
Scratch helps young people learn to think creatively, reason systematically, and work collaboratively — essential skills for life in the 21st century.
Scratch is a project of the Lifelong Kindergarten Group at the MIT Media Lab. It is provided free of charge.
If you have kids, you should introduce them to scratch!