Startup blogger and uber-nerd Eric Ries has a heartfelt, and articulate plea to the Obama administration called "Teach Kids Programming, Mr. President". It is a long post, but very well worth the reading. Here are a few excerpts, that may whet your appetite for the rest:
1. The future strength of our economy depends on its ability to create, support, and sustain entrepreneurs.
2. We know who the next generation of entrepreneurs are going to be. They are in school, right now, all across this country.
3. They are nerds.
There's more good stuff... lots more:
There are three threats that are limiting the opportunity to unlock these kids' creativity:
1. Inequity of access. Too many kids today don't have access to computers, cell phones, video games or other programmable devices.
2. DRM and other restrictions. Increasingly, today's computers and video games are not programmable, they are locked to their users.
3. School hostility to phones, nerds, and other things they don't understand. An awful lot of kids have cell phones, and schools are busy banning them from classrooms. What a lost opportunity! Kids are voluntarily bringing a portable networked supercomputer to class, and we want to restrict them to pencil and paper?
This is an important time for us to use this time of launching grand new initiatives, to invest in our most important resource: our kids. Eric has some interesting thoughts, they are worth a look.
No comments:
Post a Comment