Why Kids should learn to code

Today's guardian online has a stunningly well-written article on why kids should learn to code, and the key concepts they should understand.

" if they don't have a deeper understanding of this stuff then they will effectively be intellectually crippled. They will grow up as passive consumers of closed devices and services, leading lives that are increasingly circumscribed by technologies created by elites working for huge corporations such as Google, Facebook and the like. We will, in effect, be breeding generations of hamsters for the glittering wheels of cages built by Mark Zuckerberg [creator of Facebook] and his kind."

I am not surprised that this has come up in the British press first. When I was creating my show of mechanical interactive fairy tale art for the Burnaby Art Gallery

and was trying to learn basic mechanical concepts, I discovered that British schools include the technology of how to make simple machines in their art courses. Sheesh! I could have used that.