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Teach kids to farm, not code.

kimburgess.info

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Re: Teach kids to farm, not code.

#11

Post by gambiting »

I don't understand. We've spent thousands of years, using 99.9% of able-bodied people for farming, hunting or some other food-gathering activities. Only selected few could afford to NOT work in farming. Even America, just 200 years ago had 90% of its population working as farmers.

Why such a desperate trend to make everyone grow their own food again? Sure, the food industry is not always honest,not always as good as your own home-grown food, but still - it allowed us to do something else with our lives, and pushed our societies an order of magnitude ahead.

As much as people should APPRECIATE farming, I don't think that everyone should do it. We produce enough food as it is. We should teach kids how to code however, not because we need more programmers(which we do,but I digress) - but because it's the easiest way to introduce kids to logical, technical-like thinking. That way we can have more mathematicians, physicists, astronomers, engineers - people who we can afford to keep alive(almost literally) because they do not need to grown their own food anymore! They can sit at their desks for the whole day, thinking how to make the world better, instead of looking at how the crops grow.

I would say - why not give kids both? Is it too much to ask? Show them how vegetables are grown, how animals are cared for and how are they slaughtered, but at the same time, yes, please teach them how to code.

Re: Teach kids to farm, not code.

#13

Post by empoman »

I think what most people are missing is that it's not about creating more programmers as much as it is about teaching people how to think analytically. When you're programming you try to solve a high level problem using low level techniques. The actual programming is the part where you find a solution for the high level problem with your low level tools.

So again, it is not just about writing code. It is about how to approach problems and finding viable solutions, no matter what the form of the problem is. It could as well be: "How can I speed up the harvesting on my farm?". Knowing programming helps us in many more situations than just writing code.

Re: Teach kids to farm, not code.

#14

Post by kimburgess »

empoman wrote: post #13

I think what most people are missing is that it's not about creating more programmers as much as it is about teaching people how to think analytically. When you're programming you try to solve a high level problem using low level techniques. The actual programming is the part where you find a solution for the high level problem with your low level tools. So again, it is not just about writing code. It is about how to…

Exactly.

Re: Teach kids to farm, not code.

#15

Post by barry-cotter »

gambiting wrote: post #11

I don't understand. We've spent thousands of years, using 99.9% of able-bodied people for farming, hunting or some other food-gathering activities. Only selected few could afford to NOT work in farming. Even America, just 200 years ago had 90% of its population working as farmers. Why such a desperate trend to make everyone grow their own food again? Sure, the food industry is not always honest,not always as good as…

Why such a desperate trend to make everyone grow their own food again?

Look at me exercising a form of conspicuous consumption (the time of a highly educated profeasional) that my class and culture peers think are praiseworthy. Let me say everyone should indulge in my hobby. Let's look down on those who don't together.

Re: Teach kids to farm, not code.

#17

Post by thenomad »

"There are developers all across this planet that are absolutely incredible at what they do, serious geniuses and masters of the craft yet still barely earn enough to survive."

Wouldn't it be a good idea to press for kids to be taught better business skills, then?

I'm quite serious about this - the businesses I ran as a kid / teen were amongst my most important formative experiences.

Re: Teach kids to farm, not code.

#18

Post by motters »

What will the problems of the next generation be, and how do we prepare them for that? On the face of it the next few generations face huge issues. The only thing we know for certain is that the way we live now is totally unsustainable in the long run, and that new solutions will need to be found to old and unglamorous problems. More localised food production might be one way to help them through what looks like a turbulent few decades, by building in resilience to political and economic shocks.

Is it still valuable to teach kids to code, in the same way that it might have been in the 1980s? I think so, and for the same reasons why growing your own food might also be a good idea. It makes you more independent and more resilient, and reduces your dependency upon increasingly centralised systems which are vulnerable to failure or being co-opted by parties who don't care about your interests. As time goes by code makes up the fundamental infrastructure of life, so who writes and controls that code, and what their priorities are, becomes a critical question.

Re: Teach kids to farm, not code.

#19

Post by fsniper »

gambiting wrote: post #11

I don't understand. We've spent thousands of years, using 99.9% of able-bodied people for farming, hunting or some other food-gathering activities. Only selected few could afford to NOT work in farming. Even America, just 200 years ago had 90% of its population working as farmers. Why such a desperate trend to make everyone grow their own food again? Sure, the food industry is not always honest,not always as good as…

I don't believe computer programing is a good way to teach logical thinking. Sociology, Philosophy and Literature are better alternatives.

Coding only makes you better micro managers, "thinking of efficient ways to make idiots do things you like".

Also teaching agriculture or other physical goods producing craftsmanship to kids would make them better at real world challenges. Modern society seems to be run by digital arts but it's just an illusion of how we live.

Re: Teach kids to farm, not code.

#20

Post by walshemj »

logn wrote: post #2

This article presents a nuanced point, and I agree with it. My response to this quote by Steve Burgess (not the author): "Why are programmers granted such high status and wealth in our society for living in a self-created self-indulgant intellectual world of constant escapism- and yet farmers are regarded with such distain when they operate on the most important boundary between society and the biosphere?" ... would…

Given the amount of government subvention and subsidies compered to Farmers we are very very low down on the totem pole.

In the EU in 20010 €43.8bn (31% of the EU budget) compared to the support that STEM industries get this is far more.

Blue states like CA and MA support the smaller interior agricultural red states - the USA is set up to favor farmers.

You don't get satire like Farmer Palmer in VIZ from nothimg

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