Why should children program? A review of Seymour Papert's Mindstorms
At my age I can barely read the article's thin, small, low-contrast font, but I believe that I agree with the author. I read Mindstorms back when it was first published and thought it was reasonable. Now, I'm more skeptical. I see the early introduction of technology into schools as distractions.I have the benefit of experiencing life before the impact of computers on society. Heck, my parents wouldn't even let me get toys that required batteries (too expensive to replace). So, I played with toy trucks and I read and I climbed trees and I drew. I drew pictures of locks, of circuits, of mazes, of buildings.My own children grew up very differently. Playing video games, and their schools insisted on early introduction of laptops, convertible laptop/tablets, and iPads. At an age where I would be drawing complicated diagrams of electrical relays to play tick-tack-toe (which, because I was just a 13 year old kid with no training would have never worked) they played XBox.I tried to get the schools to use paper and pencil for math lessons instead of iPads, but the forces at work in school systems end up encouraging many distracting technologies being introduced with no discernible benefit.Furthermore, the development of abstract thinking, necessary for programming, happens over time in children. Is there any evidence that early programming instruction hastens it's development? Real research in education seems pretty weak.