I actually answered that question in the very next sentence, perhaps you should have read the entire post.
Students DO NOT need to know how their computer works. You’re in the old pre-appliance thinking, we’re in the appliance age of computing. The computer is just a tool people put data into and get data out of, the average person doesn’t need to know how they work anymore than the average person knows how microwaves, florescent lights or the internal combustion engine work. They need to know how to USE it, but you don’t need to know what’s behind the buttons to use something.
Not teaching OSes that the students will almost certainly not encounter in adulthood isn’t preventing critical thinkers. If they want to go learn other OSes they can, nobody is stopping them, and you don’t need to know ANY OS at all to be a critical thinker. It’s just an OS, not a religion, in spite of what some Nix-weenies and Mac-heads want you to think.
Yes, and all those appliances are built by elves. Certainly not by people who were in high school years ago. And the future of those "appliances" certainly won't be built and coded by people who are in high school now.
Besides, it's not like the next generation of code hackers won't be there if they don't learn it in American high schools. They're learning it in Korean, Chinese, Indian and Japanese (and even Russian) high schools.
If they want to be consumers, you're correct. If they want to be producers, you are entirely wrong. If they are content to wait for someone to write solutions for them, you are correct. If they want to solve their own problems, you are entirely wrong.
You’re in the old pre-appliance thinking, we’re in the appliance age of computing.
I know how all of my appliances work, and can fix those which are fixable. Windows users can not (generally) say the same about their systems.
The computer is just a tool people put data into and get data out of, the average person doesn’t need to know how they work anymore than the average person knows how microwaves, florescent lights or the internal combustion engine work.
First off, you're wrong. When I was in Home Ec, we learned how all of the appliances worked and how to do minor repairs. How can you know if your stove is working optimally if you don't know how it works at all? I know how internal combustion, microwaves, and florescent lights work from physics class. They teach all of that in high school. Or they used to.
Secondly, it takes more than "average" people with average educations to be the engineers and scientists of the world. It takes innovative, better-than-average minds.
I am not satisfied with average. Why are you? More to the point, why should we be satisfied with average results from America's students? Many are capable of much more than average.
I started teaching command line Linux to the six year old this year. You'd be surprised how easily they pick things up at this age. Of course, we strive for excellence, not "make do" and not "average".
Not teaching OSes that the students will almost certainly not encounter in adulthood isn’t preventing critical thinkers. If they want to go learn other OSes they can, nobody is stopping them, and you don’t need to know ANY OS at all to be a critical thinker. It’s just an OS, not a religion, in spite of what some Nix-weenies and Mac-heads want you to think.
Well, you've got me there. If we teach the minimum and demand very little, most American students will almost certainly never encounter various OSes in adulthood. The menial jobs they will land will not require much that way. So you're right. If we raise another generation of people who don't know how things work, they will have no need for anything difficult.