“Learning to Code is Not Just for Coders” | Ali Partovi | TEDxSausalito

three and a half years ago my twin brother Hadi and I launched co.org to promote computer science in public schools but going back a little further 20 years ago Steve Jobs voiced a provocative idea that's still relevant today that computer science is a liberal art I think everybody in this country should learn how to program a computer should learn a computer language because it teaches you how to think and so I view computer science as a liberal art it should be something that everybody learned you know takes it it takes a year in their life one of the courses they take is you know learning how to program now going back even further in time my story begins when my brother Hadi and I were kids we grew up in Iran and when we were 7 years old there was a revolution and then a long war with Iraq and we spent our days and our nights literally afraid all the time our home was near the television broadcast station and that was a frequent target for Iraqi bomber raids and so we'd spend many nights underground in the basement holding our ears in case a bomb might hit our home yet I would still say that we were among the luckiest kids in the world because in 1981 when we were 9 years old we received a magic gift our dad gave us a computer he didn't put any games on it he said if we wanted games we would need to have two we would need to learn how to make our own and so our dad introduced us to computer programming and we fell in love I mean we really fell in love we became great at computer programming when our family moved to America we got summer jobs programming we paid our own way through college by the time I was 25 I had started my own company and sold it to Microsoft now today back in Iran almost every public high school teaches computer science yet here in the United State and in most of the world most kids don't have access to this to this magic gift this is something we can change and this is something that is changing it's an enormous challenge and an enormous opportunity to update the curriculum of the world schools and in the last three years there's been an unbelievable unprecedented movement led by teachers seven countries have declared computer science part of their national curriculum 20 states across America have changed their education policies to embrace computer science 120 school districts have partnered with code.org and several hundred thousand classroom teachers are now teaching our curriculum millions actually over a hundred million kids have done the hour of code which we launched three years ago now all of this rapid change doesn't come without a few critics and the idea of coding and schools has raised some legitimate and important questions for one public school kids are struggling with English and math shouldn't certain public schools stay focused on the fundamentals then there's screen time kids these get kids these days get way too much screen time do we really want screen time in schools too and perhaps most importantly why does everyone need to learn how to code after all we have mechanics to repair our cars we have doctors for medicine can't we just leave coding to the coders well these are legitimate questions and I'm going to address them today starting with one important vocabulary change instead of talking about code learning to code let's talk about computer science because the word code in public schools today really is just a popular nickname for computer science computer science which is a legitimate and rigorous academic topic that's about much more than simply learning how to code learning how to write isn't just for people who grow up to become writers math isn't just for mathematicians every public school teaches these topics because they're foundational to other pursuits computer science isn't just for coders computer science is foundational and every public school should offer it as part of the curriculum now let me break this down a bit let's talk about math I love math math we don't send kids to school just to learn how to divide or learn how to factor polynomials it's not because they're going to grow up to be factoring polynomials for the rest of their lives it's because math is about logic and problem solving it teaches kids how to think well computer science is also about logic and problem solving and learning how to think and it teaches some of the same advanced concepts as math in a way that's even more fun and engaging than math is for example this this year a survey of American high school students ask them which class they liked the most computer science came in at the top second only to the arts ahead of every other subject in school this is a course that teaches some of the same advanced concepts as math it makes them more tangible more fun and more engaging and makes advanced concepts easier for kids to grasp at a younger age to show you an example of that abstraction abstraction means for example things like functions and variables these are concepts that are introduced in eighth grade algebra yet they're introduced much much earlier in fifth grade computer science wait a second you might be wondering what's fifth grade computer science they didn't have computer science when I was in fifth grade well code org has created a complete curriculum for computer science beginning in kindergarten and we give it away for free and it's being taught in hundreds of thousands of classrooms today now to give you an example of how the idea of functions are introduced to young kids I'll walk you through an example imagine you were writing a computer program to teach a computer how to sing the song Old MacDonald had a farm everybody remembers a song you know yeah yeah this is a very repetitive song it's a very long song in fact it's it's infinitely long I mean the song literally never ends right you can exhaust all the farm animals than zoo animals and keep going kids learn how to sing it in preschool they're not memorizing an infinite number of lyrics they're recognizing that there's a pattern that repeats and recognizing patterns is a foundational part of computer science and using patterns to break down big problems into smaller ones so if you're teaching a computer how to generate the lyrics for the song you don't have to give it the entire song you just have to teach it one verse and you define that as a function where all the words are the same except for two words that are different each time the animal name and the animal sound and now if you want to generate a virtually infinite song you just invoke that function over and over with a different animal name and sound this is how kids already learn how to sing we're just putting some structure around it and making it a tool that they can use to take on larger more complex problems now let me talk a little bit about English we don't send kids to school because they have to learn how to punctuate English isn't simply about learning to spell or learning grammar once you know how to read and write you use those skills to learn new ideas and more importantly to create your own ideas and to share them English stimulates imagination creativity and sharing new ideas well the same can be said for computer science computer science isn't simply about learning how to code learning how to code is a start just like learning how to spell or learning grammar once you know the language that's when your imagination takes over that's when you can begin to take on complex problems and to create new things studying English prepares kids for college and for life it's indispensable to higher education the same can be said for computer science it prepares kids for college and life almost no matter what they're going to do in chemistry recently the Nobel Prize was won by a team of computer scientists in ornithology which is the study of birds the leading research is being done today by computer scientists in medicine one of the world's top doctors the head of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Institute recently said that if you want to become a doctor studying computer is just as relevant to you and studying human anatomy at Stanford University there are 65 undergraduate undergraduate majors almost half of them recognized computer science as satisfying graduation requirements that includes majors like archeology human biology and political science now most of Stanford's majors are in the humanities which have nothing to do with computer science but what I didn't mention yet is there are 14 new majors that Stanford has created 14 new joint majors that are all of the form computer science plus a humanity like computer science plus history or computer science plus Slavic literature because Stanford recognizes that computer science is relevant to people even if they plan on studying Slavic literature at Stanford today 90% of undergraduates take a computer science class 90% regardless of what they're studying and here's what the course catalogue has to say about computer science they say this program prepares students for careers in government law the corporate sector and graduate study that means whether you want to become a politician a lawyer a businessperson or professor computer science is for you computer science is a liberal art it's foundational now even if it wasn't foundational there's another reason why schools ought to teach computer science think about it why does schools teach biology for a few students high school bio might lead to a lucrative career as a doctor or a veterinarian but for everybody it gives them a better understanding of the world imagine a school that didn't teach photosynthesis or the digestive system would you send your kids to school where they would graduate not knowing how their own digestive system works would you call that an education well kids these days are surrounded by computers and dependent on computers heck I'd even say that high school kids these days use their smartphone more frequently than their own digestive system it's true and they deserve an education that teaches them how both work to leave kids in the dark about this major part of their world is an unacceptable gap in their education we should expect and demand that all schools teach computer science now concerns about screen time are valid I have kids I worry a lot about screen time the good news is computer science is not all screen time I majored in computer science at Harvard not a single classroom had a single computer in it computer science can be taught with pen and paper a computer program can be written with pen and paper think of it this way a computer program is like a recipe you can create a recipe using your imagination in your brain and write it down without ever having a kitchen to test it of course it's more fun if you have a kitchen to test it and see if it works but you can do it all in your brain that old MacDonald's song I showed you that's an actual classroom exercise done on pen and paper by 10 year olds no screens involved do you know the history of computer science I didn't know this the first computer was invented in 1943 the first computer program was written by a woman named Ada Lovelace in 1843 a full hundred years before the computer was invented Ada Lovelace didn't have a problem with screen time screens didn't even exist when she was inventing computer programming she did computer science using her brain using her imagination computer science is not screen time computer science is brain time computer science is brain time now the reason screen time is bad screen time is bad when it's used passively when it's used to watch videos or to play games screen time is great when it's used for creativity and problem-solving to limit that would be like depriving a child of time with her paintbrushes why would you want to put a limit on a kid's creativity just like art kids love computer science and computer programming because it lets them create anything they can imagine I remember when Heidi and I were kids we were we were afraid of so many things we were afraid of the Ayatollah of the Islamic government of the bombs of the unknown and in computer science and computer programming we found an escape we found that we could create our own world a world that was predictable a world where the rules made sense a world where anything was possible a world where anything that went there went wrong could be fixed it's no wonder that we fell in love with it it's no wonder that kids all over the world are falling in love with computer programming today and teachers are falling in love with teaching it code org has trained more than 40,000 teachers these are amazing teachers math and science teachers who come to us and then go back to introduce computer science into their schools and they tell us that they're they love seeing their kids eyes light up from Brooklyn to Chicago to Oakland kids are falling in love with computer science not just because it's a vocational skill not just because it gives them a better understanding of the world around them not just because it's a foundation for the rest of their life but also because it's an escape from the pressures of being a kid it's as an outlet for their imagination it's giving them a reason to have hope and it's giving them a reason to fall in love with school for a lot of public school kids but the ones who have access to computer science it's their favorite subject because it makes school real and relevant now the unfortunate thing is today only one out of four public schools in America offers computer science this is fundamentally unfair this gift this this magic gift should not be a privilege for the lucky few every child in America deserves access to computer science for a few it might lead to a lucrative career as so called coders but for everybody it'll teach them how to think how to imagine how to create it'll provide a better understanding of the world and an indispensable foundation for life thank you

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 300,657

Keywords: TEDxTalks, English, United States, Technology, America, Coding, Creativity, Education, Learning

Id: MvTSPwftvyo

Length: 15min 24sec (924 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 01 2016