Well presumably because we already are telling people to learn how to write and communicate. Public schools spend more time on those topics than probably any other. Furthermore, advocating mastery of one skill is different from advocating basic literacy in another skill.
This said, I agree that "learn to code" is tiresome. Why aren't cries of "learn basic electrical engineering" as popular? Or, if we want clear societal benefit, why not advocate learning how to swim? Thousands of American adults and teenagers drown every year; something like 36% of Americans cannot swim.
Of course "either tell people to learn how to swim, or tell them to learn to code" is a false dichotomy (both can be done at once) but I am wondering why "learn to code" gets so much attention. The amount I hear about getting the general public to code seems disproportionate.
In the long run the ability to understand and manipulate information via automated instructions (ie, coding) will almost surely end up being as important being able to capture down and consume ideas (reading and writing) or manipulate abstract quantities through symbology (mathematics.) It's a fundamental skill that is plain to see unless you are so entrenched in the contemporary details of things like programming languages and platforms that you've lost touch with the underlying power, leverage, and joy of it.
The joy I find in programming is no more a reason to encourage people to learn to code than the joy of plumbing is a reason to encourage people to learn to plumb. People can find joy in nearly anything, that isn't something special that coding brings to the table.
Power and leverage? Yes, coding gives you those things, in certain domains, but I do not buy the argument that teaching coding is the most efficient way of teaching these things. Trying to use coding to teach critical thinking, logical reasoning, and basic troubleshooting would surely work, but we have these things built into language and fields that is already designed to handle it first and foremost, without the material distraction.
Very few universities start their CS programs off with something other than vocational drudgery that would be pointless for anybody who just wants those nice side effects of learning to code.
Consider that in 100 years we will still have people performing some derived concept of "coding" today, whereas all of our plumbing will probably be done by the machines which are created by those people.
Coding is an abstraction on top of an ever more essential skill: directing automated symbol manipulation. It seems foundational and those fighting against it are best likened to the subset of monks who surely saw writing as a skill to be learned only by a select few and not as some universal, fundamental skill all people would need to participate in society.
The extent that programming has been required to make effective use of computers has been in freefall since computers were first constructed. I see no reason to think that this trend will not continue.
Making sure that people can effectively use computers is different from having people learn to code. I really think that anyone who insists that the later is necessary has some serious tunnel-vision.
If this were true then we'd be hearing less and less about coding education, not more. There would be less "I have an idea and need a programmer" people, and not more.
More people want to learn how to code now because they realize they are at a fundamental disadvantage in manipulating these things that are entering every facet of our lives. This is the dominant force, not the slow marginalization of the utility of writing source code vs. well established problems like those that can be solved by Excel. In any case, programmers are currently proverbial priests who are the gatekeepers to enabling this effective use of computers, which I think explains a lot of the resistance to this stuff.
> "If this were true then we'd be hearing less and less about coding education, not more."
I don't think that follows. My hypothesis is that lots of programmers think that programming is more important than it really is, and politicians wanting to get tech on their side, humor them.
You know how rural farming towns often have strong 4H clubs? I think this "teach kids to code" stuff is the tech equivalent of that. Everyone wants little jimmy to grow up just like daddy and mommy, because daddy and mommy consider their line of work to be uniquely important or special.
Those communities think it is very important for children to learn how to raise cows, or drive a tractor. Ours thinks that it is very important for children to know something about computer programming. I think that either suffers from tunnel-vision and is is trying to put children into a box.
Can you not see how programming, as a skill, and computer science, as a discipline, are fundamentally different than things like plumbing and farming?
Society is on a trajectory. Automation, information processing, software. It is well on its way to permeate literally every facet of life. If there is a more direct way to position people to not be left behind in this shift than ensuring they have a basic grasp of computer science and understand they can make computers do what they want via code, I'd be hard pressed to come up with it.
Because when, outside of work and hobbies, have you ever found it useful to know basic EE? Unless you're rewiring houses on a regular basis, I can't really think of a common situation where you'd need this type of knowledge. OTOH and IMHO, everybody should know how to use a computer and have at least a rudimentary idea what the thing is capable of.
Edit: Actually, rewiring houses isn't even EE, it's whatever we call what electricians do.
A basic understanding of the physics of electricity will give you helpful insight into countless things in your everyday life; you likely don't notice this because you take such a basic understanding for granted. For example, understanding resistance current and voltage will allow you to reason about the efficiency of different sort of light bulbs (the package will give you the numbers and tell you it is good, but consumers are rightfully wary of what packaging tells them), understand how electrical heaters work, reason about their monthly power bill, etc. Knowledge of how electricity works, particularly home wiring, can save lives. Hell, just understanding what a circuit breaker is for and how to use it has the potential to save lives (and you would not believe the number of shoddy low gauge extension cables I have confiscated from my grandmother...) Even figuring out how to jump a car battery becomes much easier if you understand what you are attempting to do.
Meanwhile, since you and I can both code, we naturally inflate the importance of it. If we could not code, we would still get along in life just as well as the majority of the population (which by most reasonable accounts, is "just fine"). Basic computer literacy is much different from the ability to code, and this is only becoming more true year after year.
Don't know anything about the contemporary curriculum in US high schools, but my secondary education in physics included the basics of AC, DC, semiconducters and fundamental digital electronics, sufficient to help me fault-find a busted LED in a string of christmas lights this past weekend.
If schools aren't teaching circuits, V=IR and P=IV, I agree they should. But I'm pretty sure in many cases they are, so you're arguing with a straw man.
Thousands of American adults and teenagers drown every year; something like 36% of Americans cannot swim. I'm not surprised with the high level of obesity in the US.
Obesity isn't as much of a factor as you might think. With proper technique, very obese people can swim (at least 24 yards, which was the bar used for that statistic) without much effort.
Adipose tissue (fat) has a density slightly lower than that of water, so the primary concern is really keeping your head above water and not panicking (both of those are mostly technique, not really 'physical feats'). Once you've got floating mastered, an elementary backstroke will get you moving slowly through the water without much caloric expenditure.
Swimming ability seems to correspond to family income (and therefore access to pools) rather closely. Increasing the swimming skills of the general population would mostly be a matter of ensuring that school districts have pools, and making swimming lessons in PE classes a higher priority. Kids don't die because they don't know how to play badminton, but people do drown...
(Disclosure: One of my jobs through highschool and part of college was working as a swimming instructor, which is part of why this issue has my attention)
Not to mention "America's obesity epidemic" in reality means "most people have a little bit of extra flab" (based on BMI), not giant super obese people who can't get through their front doors. Most "obese" people are not in any way physically impeded from swimming.
This said, I agree that "learn to code" is tiresome. Why aren't cries of "learn basic electrical engineering" as popular? Or, if we want clear societal benefit, why not advocate learning how to swim? Thousands of American adults and teenagers drown every year; something like 36% of Americans cannot swim.
Of course "either tell people to learn how to swim, or tell them to learn to code" is a false dichotomy (both can be done at once) but I am wondering why "learn to code" gets so much attention. The amount I hear about getting the general public to code seems disproportionate.