Is Your Kid's Coding Class Teaching a Skill AI Can Already Do?
2025-06-10
Is Your Kid's Coding Class Teaching a Skill AI Can Already Do?
You’ve seen the headlines. You know that tech skills are vital for the future, and you’ve signed your child up for a coding class. Watching them build a game in Scratch or write their first lines of Python, you feel a wave of relief. You’re giving them a head start.
But what if the very definition of a "tech skill" is changing right under our noses?
The simple act of writing code is quickly becoming a task that Artificial Intelligence can handle with ease. Tools like ChatGPT can now generate perfectly functional code from a simple, plain-English sentence.
This leads to a hard question: If a coding program only teaches the language of code, is it preparing your child for the future, or for a task that will soon be automated?
The "Recipe Follower" Trap
Many kids' coding programs focus on what we call the "Syntax Trap." They teach the rules and commands of a language—like Python or Java—but not the creative thinking behind it.
Think of it like cooking. You can give someone a recipe for a cake, and they can follow it step-by-step. They can measure the flour, crack the eggs, and set the oven to the right temperature. They’ll probably end up with a decent cake.
We call this person a "Recipe Follower."
But what happens if they’re out of eggs? Or if they want to make the cake lemon-flavored instead of vanilla? The Recipe Follower is stuck. They know the steps, but they don't understand why those steps work. They don’t know that eggs bind the ingredients or that lemon juice adds the acidity needed to balance the sweetness.
A true chef, on the other hand, understands the system. They can invent new recipes, substitute ingredients, and solve problems on the fly because they grasp the principles of flavor, chemistry, and texture.
They can replicate, but a chef can create.
When a coding class only teaches syntax (for loops, if statements), it creates Recipe Followers. Kids learn to type out commands, but they don't learn how to creatively solve a real-world problem. They’re learning the grammar of a language that AI is getting better at speaking every single day.
A skill that can be replaced by a text prompt is not a foundation for a career.
So, if being a "code typist" isn't the goal, what is? How do we turn our kids from Recipe Followers into creative Master Chefs of technology?
In our next post, we’ll explore the real, future-proof skill that every child needs—and how fun, hands-on projects are the key to building it.
Take the Next Step Beyond Code
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