Lottie Dexter was the chief of the UK's Year of Code, but has now quit. The video says it all. Jump to 5m 30s.
That is pretty stinking cool. Learning to code is a great idea for kids just like teaching them another language. I don't fully agree with the video that coding is a necessary to live everyday life, but it sure is helpful when your website/app stops working correctly or if you want to program the lights in your house to save power. There are unlimited ways to use programming code in everyday life, but obviously most of live just fine without it.
One things for sure, it's not for everyone. They should focus their efforts on students who are both interested, and have the right mind for it. Piano lessons would be wasted on some of us, same goes for coding.
Agreed! My Dad tried to get me involved in soccer, baseball and basketball. But I ended up skateboarding playing drums for 20 years.... who knew? Not to mention I went to college for an art degree and now I'm a full-time IT tech. Who knew?