When I was growing up (80s), the computer was treated like a black box in education. You'd sit at the computer, recite the incantations, and the computer perfor

When I was growing up (80s), the computer was treated like a black box in education. You'd sit at the computer, recite the incantations, and the computer performed the magic. At school, they sat you in front of the computers and you just tinkered with the software for an hour while the teacher finished grading papers. At home, chances are good your parents didn't understand much about computers, so you were mostly on your own, and computers were so expensive that you didn't dare mess with the hardware. These days, it's a whole new game. We can give our kids a more holistic education around coding because we have things like Arduino, Raspberry Pi, Lego Mindstorms, etc. We can teach code as one among many tools to get a job done or otherwise affect the world, rather than teaching coding as an abstract end in itself. As an example, my daughter wants to build a garden with me in the near future. Part of that project might include some Arduino-based sensors. If she's interested, I can teach her all about it. But either way, there's a lot to learn. All of this is to say I agree with you, that code is perhaps an equal, but not superior, among many other ways to help teach a kid how to think.