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The assumption that the general public is dumb and must be protected from difficult subjects/intellectual work, is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Removing everyth
by dougabug 11y ago
The assumption that the general public is dumb and must be protected from difficult subjects/intellectual work, is a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Removing everything from the curriculum that "a lot of people are bad at" is a bad idea. Most people are bad at something, there's nothing wrong with trying and failing; what's wrong is not trying when there's so much possibility that might be unlocked in people's minds.
The ability to program, to debug logic, to understand algorithms brought to the general public could be the biggest cognitive advance to society at large since free compulsory education. Frankly, most people take classes in geometry, trig, linear algebra and calculus which never really gels in their brains and they never productively use in their adult lives. Learning how to make computers solve problems elevates and empowers the mind.
Let's suppose that only a third of the population every becomes halfway proficient at writing software. That will be 2.5 billion people! With that many computer literate people in the world, finding teachers for the subject will not be difficult. I wouldn't worry about bright young hackers being crowded out by the dull masses; young hackers have been teaching themselves since there were close to zero teachers who could code.