Chinese children learn to Code as American kids learn to Twerk

China Money Report ^ | 23 November2015 | D. Collins

[Lorianne]

Nanjing mother Zhang Minyan began encouraging her 5-year-old daughter to learn coding from Wu after watching a video of an American child who wrote an app for friends so they could share their views on Canadian singer Justin Bieber, she said. Before that, Zhang hadn’t thought it was necessary for children to learn.

‘Big impression’

“That made a big impression on me,” Zhang, 32, recalls. “I thought, since my child is playing games on an iPad everyday already, why not give her some guidance and let her learn something in the process?” Also children are learning to code in other countries and Zhang doesn’t want her daughter to be left behind, she says.

Encouraging children to learn how to write the instructions for computer programs may help China move up the technology value chain, making it more of an innovator of software and digital tools, rather than a mass manufacturer and a component supplier

[bert]

Well for those of us who first heard the word yesterday, how does one twerk ?

[JoeFromSidney]

My experience with a particular ethnic group in college is that they had it down to a science how to cheat on tests.

As Bret Harte wrote, "For ways that are dark and for tricks that are vain, the heathen Chinee is peculiar."

[Johnny Carcinogen]

Imagine someone having a seizure localized within the buttocks.

Or just be proud/happy you don’t know, which is the smarter play.

[FourPeas]

As a trained coder, this makes me cringe. Bad programming practices are difficult to unlearn, and it’s even more difficult to convince people who have them that they need to unlearn them.