How would someone know whether to consider it, if not exposed to it at all?
Most people in the English-speaking western world won't make a vast amount of use of that second language. Some will though, and the rest of us will appreciate that the training we did get helps us see things from a different perspective and maybe lets us interact a little easier on vacation. Most won't use their Chemistry or Physics education in day to day life, but it will help them understand the world better.
As our world becomes dominated by software, training in it becomes similar - even those who aren't going to go all in and follow a career in it, can conceivably benefit from some training.
(It's quite fascinating to see that play out, we were walking in the street recently and somebody stopped to ask me a question. He butted in and said "Daddy speaks English", in Finnish, to the stranger.)
For a lot of people, than means learning programming before learning english.
Which is incredibly counter productive. It's like learning maths without pen and paper. Sure you can do it, but I wouldn't want to.
Besides, there are only a limited number of hours in the day. Energy and motivation are also in short supply. You can't do everything at once, and even if you manage a bit of parallelism, you'll end up doing a lot supperficially.
Better be sequencial. And prioritize.
> How would someone know whether to consider it, if not exposed to it at all?
Like I said, just like with music, you put it everywhere, and you associate it with joy.
Play with robots, make beautiful programmable lights shows in the kid room, use games like turing tumble, program openly and talk proudly about the result, create bots to annoy the kid in social media, make your own "alexa" system that the whole family can abuse, lay around bare raspi you can fiddle with, etc.
The idea is that you feel like the house in "honey I shrunk the kids". It calls for experimenting.
> Most people in the English-speaking western world won't make a vast amount of use of that second language.
First, that's not most of the world. Second, of course they would. It opens an entire different culture that make you think differently, grow differently. Sure, you can put a number on it, but it's huge, and it must happen soon, or it will unlikely happen at all.
It's hard to learn a language by yourself unless you travel abroad, while learning programming alone is easy.
In fact, if you have the money, sending your kid abroad in hight school or college is fantastic.
> Most won't use their Chemistry or Physics education in day to day life, but it will help them understand the world better.
And because you had to learn all that at the same time, most people don't understand basic physics, chemistry or maths. They don't speak a second language either. They lost everything, trying to do all the things.
> As our world becomes dominated by software, training in it becomes similar - even those who aren't going to go all in and follow a career in it, can conceivably benefit from some training.
Software is just regular life, automated and faster.
Learn real life first.
This appears to run counter to all educational programs, everywhere.
I'll listen to your theories on why programming is unimportant after the world has accepted your theories on only learning one thing at a time, I guess.
> Like I said ...
That's introductory teaching right there. You're simply quibbling about methods.
> It's hard to learn a language by yourself unless you travel abroad, while learning programming alone is easy.
Not really, not if nobody ever introduced you to the fact that programming exists, and held your hand as you dipped your toes in.
Maybe it was easy for you, as a self-motivated hacker type, that doesn't mean everyone is like that (even those who end up in the industry, doing perfectly well).
> Software is just regular life, automated and faster.
Nope.
Or, better yet, when she seeks it out on her own. But yeah, I agree 100% with the spirit of this comment.
My son, who is not yet 6, will watch YouTube videos about creating something in Minecraft and then build it almost exactly to spec later, not while watching the video. This includes some redstone contraptions. It’s pretty mind-blowing to watch him.
The educational versions of minecraft (e.g. the raspi version) integrate python scripting directly.
Microsoft forked a "bedrock" version of minecraft that I'm not as familiar with and that has a different plugin ecosystem. The Java-based version still has all the same plugin capabilities it always has.
My answer was "when she asks for it".
There are many things a kid should learn, and among them, a huge number are more important than programming (plus sometimes a pre-requisite for it):
- reading
- writing
- basic maths
- critical analysis
- building your own idea
- defending yourself verbally, mentally and physically
- expressing yourself
- chosing ingredients and preparing food
- proper life hygiene
- understanding the current society, the medias, the political system, etc
- learning a second language
I recall that when I was a freshman, some kids were still not be able to read out loud correctly.
Programming can come later. Way, way later.
In fact, she may even not enjoy programming at all, or even consider it.
I think the best bet is like with music. If it's something you want to share: demo a lot of it in regular life, associate it with joy, and the kid may just show an interest in it.
Then foster than.
Then setup lessons, discipline, etc.
But don't make it a requirement.