"Shaping our children's education in computing by Simon Peyton Jones at Strange Loop 2018

About the first twenty minutes of this talk (before he gets into the Brittian-specific stuff) is absolutely fantastic.

Education should prepare young people for jobs that do no yet exist, using technologies that have not yet been invented, to solve problem of which we are not yet aware.

His main point is that we (in computers) often put too much focus on technology and not enough on ideas. He showed this really cool video about how you could illustrate sorting algorithms to kids without using any technology. His point is that we need more that encourages inquisitiveness and imagination.

He also makes good arguments about why we should teach “computer science” (again, ideas not technology) to kids. Technologies come and go, but the underlying ideas persist:

Why do we teach biology to kids? Do we expect every kid to become a biologist? No. It’s about coming to understand the world you live in and how you can navigate it, how to take control of events in your life and not just be at their mercy.

Education shouldn’t be about teaching a skill and splitting someone out at the end who is armed with that skill. Rather we teach skills or reason and dedication and problem solving so that when they get spit out, they can navigate the successive waves of technology that will come at them over their careers. Knowing one won’t be enough.