Every day I am more and more convinced of the different social class that exists when it comes to programmers.  Anyone who has the time and inclination to become a programmer (most of the time), has been presented with a life situation that allows them the time and concentration necessary to learn programming.  

One of the side aspects that comes along with being a programmer seems to include the ability to divide processes into more easily completed chunks.  This ability is extremely valuable in almost all professions.  This leads me to believe, especially with the growth and dependency on technology, that basic programming should be a minimal requirement in highschool.

What would teaching basic programming and computer education bring to public high school education?  Increased problem solving ability.  I believe it would significantly increase the ability for many students, to interpret and solve a variety of problems from mathematics to social ones.  Increased computer education would increase the base knowledge of our population and lessen the amount of stress on IT departments.  I also think it’s necessary that the next generations are taught the basics of online safety.  Not simply viruses, but also on the effects from online social interactions.  In turn this could help to further protect our populations from scams of a variety of natures, and simply provide some basic understanding of what to watch out for.  I think that if this could be done effectively it would highly benefit our society as it grows.