This blog piece is reprinted with permission of its author, Douglas Rushkoff. It was originally published at http://www.edutopia.org/blog/code-literacy-21st-century-requirement-douglas-rushkoff. Douglas is the author of Program or Be Programmed and a good friend of CSTA.
As I see it, code literacy is a requirement for participation in a digital world. When we acquired language, we didn’t just learn how to listen, but also how to speak. When we acquired text, we didn’t just learn how to read, but also how to write. Now that we have computers, we are learning to use them but not how to program them. When we are not code literate, we must accept the devices and software we use with whatever limitations and agendas their creators have built into them. How many times have you altered the content of a lesson or a presentation because you couldn’t figure out how to make the technology work the way you wanted? And have you ever considered that the software’s limitations may be less a function of the underlying technology than that of the corporation that developed it? Would you even know where to begin distinguishing between the two?
This puts us and our kids — who will be living in a more digital world than our own — at a terrible disadvantage. They are spending an increasing amount of their time in digital environments where the rules have been written by others. Just being familiar with how code works would help them navigate this terrain, understand its limitations and determine whether those limits are there because the technology demands it — or simply because some company wants it that way. Code literate kids stop accepting the applications and websites they use at face value, and begin to engage critically and purposefully with them instead.
Otherwise, they may as well be at the circus or a magic show.
More generally, knowing something about programming makes us competitive as individuals, companies and a nation. The rest of the world is learning code. Their schools teach it, their companies are filled with employees who get it, and their militaries are staffed by programmers — not just gamers with joysticks. According to the generals I’ve spoken with, we are less than a generation away from losing our technological superiority on the cyber battlefield, which should concern a nation depending so heavily on drones for security and electronic trading as an industry.
Finally, learning code — and doing so in a social context — familiarizes people with the values of a digital society: the commons, collaboration and sharing. These are replacing the industrial age values of secrecy or the hoarding of knowledge. Learning how software is developed and how the ecosystem of computer technology really works helps us understand the new models through which we’ll be working and living as a society. It’s a new kind of teamwork, and one that’s under-emphasized in our testing-based school systems.
Click here to see the full blog piece.
Douglas Rushkoff
http://codecademy.com