Good (and bad) reasons to teach all students computer science

Abstract

Recently everyone seems to be arguing that all students should learn computer science and/or learn to program. I agree. I see teaching all students computer science to be essential to counteracting our history and present state of differential access by race, class, and gender to computer science learning and computing-related jobs. However, teaching computer science is not a silver bullet or panacea. The content, assumptions, and implications of our arguments for teaching computer science matter. Some of the common arguments for why all students need to learn computer science are false; some do more to exclude than to expand participation in computing. This chapter seeks to deconstruct the many flawed reasons to teach all students computer science to help identify and amplify the good reasons.