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Microsoft, Facebook Declare European Kids Clueless About Coding, Too
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."
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
Translation: We need to flood the job market so we can hire cheaper workers. Is anyone actually buying this?
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.
As a former European kid, can I declare Microsoft clueless about coding too?
You can't exactly nurture a consumer based economy to support your profits, then complain that it's not producing enough builders.
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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.
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
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!