Is Coding the most important job skill to teach children?

         When I made this commitment to become a teacher, I realized I would be responsible for teaching the ‘core’ subjects – ELA, math, science, social studies.  I was not aware that OSPI had expanded learning standards to include computer science.  The OSPI website for this subject area states, “Effective and relevant computer science education is essential to achieving our vision that “every student is ready for college, career, and life.”     

    This statement from OSPI can be validated through a recent review done by Glassdoor.com which ranked Java Developer as the #1 job in America.  In fact, most of the top 10 jobs listed were related to computer science. https://www.glassdoor.com/List/Best-Jobs-in-America-LST_KQ0,20.htm  As educators, if we are responsible to prepare students for their futures, computer science instruction must be woven into curriculum at a robust level.

    The only way to foster the type of computer literacy and coding skills that our students will need to meet the job demands of their futures is to put technology into their hands at an early age.  Students need to engage with the technology before they can construct the questions of how and why does this work? Two potential barriers that need to be addressed in order to enhance this essential learning is access and teacher proficiency.  Recent statistics suggest that more children now have access to a computer either in the classroom or at home.  The US Census Bureau reported from April 2020 statistics that nearly 74% of children always had access to a computer for educational purposes. https://usafacts.org/articles/internet-access-students-at-home/  This is great news as this number continues to rise with increase of online learning due to COVID restrictions, however, teacher proficiency in using technology in the classroom could be a hinderance to learning.  Wikipedia reports on the page titled Computers in the Classroom that a survey of teachers reported feelings of anxiety and computer self-efficiency had an impact on their ability to teach on this subject.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computers_in_the_classroom  This information suggests that as future teachers, we must invest in ourselves and our own proficiency in computer science in order to meet the growing needs of our students.