I might have phrased my thought too bluntly: I never intended to frame the problem as any sort of moral failure on the end users’ part. I view this as a failure of our educational institutions.
In my mind, preferring to spend time on (e.g.) MS Office in class, instead of teaching proper computer literacy, is like trying to teach meal-prep with Philips air fryers instead of teaching how to cook.
I hear you, and I too feel like it might be just my aspi-nerdiness speaking, but the same argument could be said about any subject that is considered fundamental to highschool ed. We don’t skip on philosophy, sciences, languages and arts just because they seem less applicable than math or econ, or because “it’s impossible to learn everything”.
Our civ made progress, having invented a fundamentally new tech that is accessible to everyone and now underpins everything. Allowing people to acquire the basic literacy needed to interface with this tech sustainably is the bare minimum we should be doing. I am not talking about turning kids into cyber wizards - just getting their computing up to a level that allows them to make relevant informed choices.
I’m totally with you. I just think the level of informed choices that we nerds seek will not be attainable through a reasonable gen ed curriculum. It would be an improvement, though!
I might have phrased my thought too bluntly: I never intended to frame the problem as any sort of moral failure on the end users’ part. I view this as a failure of our educational institutions.
In my mind, preferring to spend time on (e.g.) MS Office in class, instead of teaching proper computer literacy, is like trying to teach meal-prep with Philips air fryers instead of teaching how to cook.
I hear you, and I too feel like it might be just my aspi-nerdiness speaking, but the same argument could be said about any subject that is considered fundamental to highschool ed. We don’t skip on philosophy, sciences, languages and arts just because they seem less applicable than math or econ, or because “it’s impossible to learn everything”.
Our civ made progress, having invented a fundamentally new tech that is accessible to everyone and now underpins everything. Allowing people to acquire the basic literacy needed to interface with this tech sustainably is the bare minimum we should be doing. I am not talking about turning kids into cyber wizards - just getting their computing up to a level that allows them to make relevant informed choices.
I’m totally with you. I just think the level of informed choices that we nerds seek will not be attainable through a reasonable gen ed curriculum. It would be an improvement, though!