Coding has sometimes been called a “new literacy,” so in thinking through how to make this powerful skill more universal, let’s look at what worked and what didn’t in one literacy program of yore.
编码有时被称为“新扫盲”，因此在思考如何使这项强大的技能变得更加通用时，让我们看一下过去的一项扫盲计划中哪些有效，哪些无效。
案例研究：美国殖民地的扫盲 (Case Study: Literacy in the U.S. colonies)
In 1642 the colony of Massachusetts made literacy the law. A harsh law. For five years, children unable to read The Bible could be taken from their parents. By 1647, however, faced with the reality that literacy wasn’t something that could be quickly legislated into reality, blame and responsibility shifted elsewhere (demonic forces, local government). In 1647, The Old Deluder Satan Act required that townships of 50 or more households were required to hire a teacher.
1642年，马萨诸塞州殖民地制定了扫盲法。 严厉的法律。 五年来，无法阅读圣经的孩子可能会被父母带走。 但是，到了1647年，面对这样一个现实，即扫盲已经不能很快立法成为现实，责任和责任转移到了其他地方(魔鬼力量，地方政府)。 1647年，《旧德鲁德撒旦法案》要求50个或更多家庭的乡镇必须聘请教师。
Unfortunately for these teachers, while The Puritans were big on literacy, they were not as crazy about books. For a full 40 years, the bible was the only book teachers could use, until the publication of the first edition of The New England Primer in 1688.
对于这些老师而言，不幸的是，尽管清教徒的读写能力很高，但他们对书本并不那么着迷。 在整整40年的时间里，这本圣经是老师唯一可以使用的书，直到1688年《新英格兰入门》第一版出版为止。
As we can see, from its somewhat infamous illustration of the alphabet, these were different times. We have not continued the practice of introducing children to the letter “A”, via the concept of original sin.
我们可以看到，从臭名昭著的字母插图中可以看出，这是不同的时代。 我们没有继续通过原罪的概念将儿童带给字母“ A”的做法。
“F” will never again be for “The Idle Fool” who is whipped at school, because that is now illegal in most parts of North America.
“ F”将永远不再是在学校受鞭打的“ The Idle Fool”，因为这在北美大部分地区现在是非法的。
C is still, as it may always be, for the playful cat, who “doth play,” before it slays. Though, we rarely bring attention to the fact that cats probably still believe to this day, they are torturing their toys.
对于顽皮的猫来说，C仍然像往常一样一直在杀人之前“扮演”。 虽然，我们很少注意到猫可能至今仍相信它们在折磨玩具的事实。
Whatever we think of this pedagogy, the impact metrics on this primer were impressive.
无论我们如何看待这种教学方法，本入门手册的影响力指标都令人印象深刻。
Over the next century it would become the dominant textbook in the colonies, with 450 different adaptations. By 1776, the year of the revolution, 80% of Americans could read, compared to only 35–40% of England. This wasn’t because England didn’t have printed material. All the earliest best sellers (Gulliver’s Travels, Robinson Crusoe) had been published. Print was abundant, and libel laws were loose. Mid-18th century was the cultural equivalent of our glorious internet. It seemed like everyone was reading, writing, arguing under multiple pseudonyms. But in truth, quality education was still only available to the privileged.
在下一世纪，它将以450种不同的改编形式成为殖民地的主要教科书。 到1776年，即革命年代，80％的美国人可以阅读，而英格兰只有35-40％的人可以阅读。 这不是因为英格兰没有印刷材料。 所有最早的畅销书(《格列佛游记》，《鲁滨逊漂流记》)都已出版。 印刷品丰富，诽谤法宽松。 18世纪中叶是我们辉煌的互联网的文化等同物。 似乎每个人都在阅读，写作，争论使用多个笔名。 但实际上，优质教育仍然只对特权者开放。
So what was working in the American colonies? There were obvious strengths to the Primer. It was simple, memorable, adaptable, and seeded communities of practice that were held together by a strong belief system. But something stopped working, eventually. By the beginning of the 20th century, all the editions started disappearing from classrooms.
那么在美国殖民地里正在做什么呢？ 底漆有明显的优势。 它是一个简单，令人难忘，适应性强且种子丰富的实践团体，被强大的信仰体系所束缚。 但是最终有些事情停止了。 到20世纪初，所有版本开始从教室消失。
The obvious weakness was that its punitive pedagogy was not sustainable. The New England Primer remained in print only as long as that belief system remained dominant.
明显的弱点是其惩罚性教学法是不可持续的。 只要该信仰体系仍然占主导地位，新英格兰入门读本就一直在印刷中。
迈向新的素养和新的信仰体系 (Towards a new literacy, and a new belief system)
So if we want any new literacy to thrive and survive, we need a belief system that’s ultimately stronger.
因此，如果我们希望任何新的素养得到发展和生存，我们就需要一个最终更强大的信念体系。
What belief could drive us towards the creation of a society in which everyone, or almost everyone, knows at least the basics of how to code? What could be strong enough to meet the urgent need to become better citizens more empowered to understand the potential, but also the issues embedded in a world driven by AI, digital networks, data, and the ability to learn as fast as the world is changing?
有什么信念可以促使我们创建一个每个人或几乎每个人至少都知道如何编码的基础的社会？ 它可能足够强大，可以满足迫切需要，使更好的公民有更多的能力去了解潜力，而且还可以解决人工智能，数字网络，数据以及随着世界变化而Swift学习的能力所驱动的世界中所隐含的问题。 ？
What if we were to believe that computing is kind of the opposite of original sin? An original power. A power that has long preceded the invention of computers, and one of our most deeply rooted, most creative and most effective human abilities. What if we were to see it as an ability that we already, pretty universally share, whether or not we have access to the latest, or any technology?
如果我们认为计算与原罪相反，该怎么办？ 原始力量。 早在计算机发明之前，它就是一种力量，它是我们根深蒂固，最具创造力和最有效的人类能力之一。 如果我们将其视为我们已经普遍共享的能力，而无论我们是否有权使用最新技术或任何技术，该怎么办？
If we believe this, then we can see coding as one of the better ways to strengthen and enrich that natural power. In the same way that reading and writing ultimately strengthen our power to reflect, create and democratize our world. Whether we call this power computational or algorithmic thinking, we could harness and value its full diversity. We could strengthen it to show each other no matter who we are, where we live, or where we came from, what we can do.
如果我们相信这一点，那么我们可以将编码视为增强和丰富自然力量的更好方法之一。 通过阅读和写作，最终可以增强我们反思，创造和民主化我们世界的力量。 无论我们称这种能力为计算能力还是算法能力，我们都可以利用并重视其充分的多样性。 我们可以加强它以彼此展示，无论我们是谁，生活在哪里，来自哪里，无论做什么。
What if we kept believing this for the coming centuries, because it turned out to be true?
如果我们在接下来的几个世纪中一直相信这一点，因为事实证明这是事实，该怎么办？
Maybe we’d find ourselves like the cat:
也许我们会发现自己像猫一样：
Always playful.
总是好玩。
Always sharp and focussed enough to slay, even if we never need to again.
即使我们再也不需要，也要始终保持敏锐和专注，足以杀死他们。
Always surviving, and always finding our centre in whatever iteration of new knowledge we happen to find ourselves in.
不断生存，无论遇到什么新知识，总能找到自己的中心。
进一步阅读 (Further reading)
The Algorithm Literacy Project
1894
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