Pat Yongpradit: Coding isn’t dead, it’s evolving

You know, STEM careers, learning STEM has really dominated a lot of the education workforce talk for 10, 15 years, maybe even 20 years. And rightly so, because of our job needs and our and our deficits in STEM education, enrollment in the humanities has dropped quite a lot over the same 10, 15, 20 years. I think AI literacy shines a light on the need for a liberal arts education but an evolved one an evolved one and where the line has been blurred between STEM education and liberal arts educ it all becomes a liberal arts education honestly that’s one way to think about it and so liberal arts and STEM is now one thing over here and then straight up hardcore STEM is one thing and that’s what we have and I think that’s Beautiful.

It’s so funny to have you on as a guest, Pat, because we’ve been on so many calls. Like, I kind of feel like this is just like another Zoom call. But I’m trying to get my game face on and approach this with the the respect and gravity because we have we have Pat Yangpat on chief academic officer at code.org.

Or one of the largest, maybe the largest organization advancing computer science for all students. And increasingly an organization that is a part of the now cacus conversation about what is the future of education look like? What does the future of computer science look like now that we have this kind of wild technology that can do stuff?

Pat, thank you for coming on. And before we sort of dive into it, maybe could you just share your your own journey because you’ve been at code for actually quite some time. You’ve seen a lot.

You’re definitely, this is definitely not your first rodeo. How long do you want me to speak about my journey? How about like 2 minutes and 30 seconds?

I first learned computer science in fifth grade on an Apple 2e and I learned logo. It happened to be the best class I’d ever taken in my entire life. It was three trimesters, you know, logo programming, slot cars, including building the slot cars, and chess.

And this was at a a private independent school and they were allowed to do stuff like that. It was amazing. And then I went to high school and I learned computer science as well at a special magnet program.

But you know what? I didn’t have any software tech people around me. No one even thought to tell me, hey Pat, this might be like a thing to do as a career.

So I got a neuroscience degree in college and while I was getting it, I was like, I don’t want to be a researcher. And I started tutoring in a special ed program in a neighborhood high school. Loved it.

Decided, "Hey, I’ll redo my degree and get an education degree and be a teacher." My parents said, "That’s crazy. Get a finish your degree and get a certification in in teaching or whatever." Like, just just finish your degree. So, I did.

And then I’ve finished my masters and a certification. And that I taught for 13 years, special education, science, computer science, middle school and high school. And honestly, Alex, I’m still a teacher.

I I could blink all this stuff out of the classroom stuff be be gone and I’ll be at my desk and that’s reality. Like this is all just a dream kind of situation. And I contracted for a variety of organizations during summers and even during the school year for the last like three to five years of my career.

So didn’t take the summers off. I haven’t taken the summer off in since I was like a little kid. I don’t know like a high school kid or something.

Because you got to make money as a teacher. And and then I got injected into the national computer science education community because there were very few of us at the time. Code.org was starting.

There were very few people who could do what I did. Boom. I’m at CO.org leading curriculum development, professional learning, school outreach, dabbling in government affairs, international development, and now leading the teach initiative, you know, with folks like you and it’s busier than ever.

There you go. It really is busier busier than ever. It’s been a couple years since the AI Zeitgeist was really sort of thrust upon us.

I mean, I know you all were tracking AI and even had content about AI way before. Yeah. Just like where are you in sort of this like journey?

Are you are you at sort of like denial? Like are you excited? Nervous.

So I’m naturally a skeptic. One person once asked me, "Hey Pat, you don’t believe in any like conspiracies, do you?" I’m like, "No, I I totally don’t." and so because I’m naturally a skeptic, Alex, I constantly question myself like, "Is this stuff like for real? Like does it really matter?

Am I spending my time wisely on this AI stuff? And every single time I ask myself that and I go through the the process of reflecting on what I’m reading and what I’m projecting and all that, I think, no, this is my best bet at least for changing the education system and providing opportunity that’s relevant for kids. So, yeah, I’ll continue doing it.

So, that’s kind of where I’m at. And I’m investing everything I can at speed because I know that there’s kids out there right now who who really need it, who are aren’t getting the opportunity to learn what they need to learn. What What have What have you seen that convinced you that this is not just another hype cycle?

H yes. So, what is the evidence or even just the observations? I’ll start with my own personal experience with AI which often amounts to just help it helping me think through stuff and write stuff.

That’s that’s what it is right now with generative AI with chat bots LLMs. And I find myself both like extending my cognitive abilities like example from like move moving from like a writing perspective to an editing perspective. But then I also see myself overrelying and and and certain skills atrophying and and so that’s that’s personal anecdotal evidence that tells me gosh if I as an adult who am very aware of this stuff am dealing with some of the negative consequences like overreiance or maybe even I No, I I haven’t got into the loss of critical thinking stuff, but over reliance for sure.

I know kids for sure are straight up like without guidance are going to overall be affected negatively by all this AI stuff and so thus I got to do something about it, right? Because it’s being thrust on them with or without organizations like code or aiEDU and and the question is how do we make sure that there’s like like the good outcome. Do do you mind digging into the skills atrophy because I feel it as well.

I I I find myself instinctively as I’m trying to write a complicated email instead of just powering through I’m just like oh they just pull the AI slot machine and just see what it comes up with. It’s often not very good. But the fact that like that’s my instinct is kind of weird.

I’ve been self-conscious about that. What? Like what does that look like for you?

Here’s the I don’t think I’ve fallen into this, but I’m constantly tempted to fall into it. And honestly, it doesn’t even have to do with like chat bots because we’ve had smart compose and stuff like that for a while anyway. So it doesn’t matter whether it’s a an application or a feature inside a a current application that I’ve been using.

I feel tempted to not express myself authentically and just take this well-worded version of what I wanted to say and use that. And I’m constantly battling between two things. It it actually you like this sounds more sophisticated or it just sounds clearer, but honestly clearer like clearer 100% or clearer for me where where I was already 90%.

But with authenticity, I’d rather take the 90% with authenticity than there’s 100% artificial. And so that’s that’s a temptation constantly. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, Michelle Culver had this Substack and it wasn’t very long, but it was actually still thinking about it right now. And she asked, "Would you rather get a birthday message from a friend, maybe even a close friend?" And it’s just very, you know, short like happy birthday smiley face emoji.

Maybe happy birthday BB smiley face emoji. Clearly just like sort of like shot off while transit or something. Or would you rather get this sort of eloquent poetic really long text written by AI?

It is clearly written by AI. It’s not even misrepresented. Yeah, obviously I know where you’re going with this and the answer for most people would be I would love to see poll results on that question and I I couldn’t imagine even 2% of people wanting the long AI version, but for me Oh, you think that’s interesting.

I Okay. Okay. Go.

Keep going. Well, I’m just thinking like that that’s an extreme example. What the more realistic example is that someone got some help and it was 70% AI and 30% them.

Would I want that over the other thing? And even then, I don’t think I’d want that. I’d want because in that context, in that situation, it’s the thought that we’re optimizing for, right?

The thought that counts. It’s not the product. So, because it’s a personal product, it’s not a it’s not going to be shown anywhere.

It’s not and it’s a very simple message, you know, happy birthday. So, yeah. Do you need a poem?

Yeah, I certainly don’t need a poem for my my few I don’t have that many friends, but if you’re listening, you don’t need to send me a poem, do so. A hot topic in AI is the future of computer science and it I think that’s because you have you know the CEOs of some of the of all the biggest AI companies talking about true you know their perspective that you know computer science is going to become a lot more accessible and democratized and and some are going so far as to say there won’t be computer science jobs anymore there there will be a lot fewer it’s hard to read through that because obviously If you’re if you’re the CEO of a frontier model company, your primary goal is raising capital to train bigger and better models. I was about to say so it benefits you to sort of stoke this hype about, oh, these models are going to be so powerful, so incredible that that we’re not going to need so I I I read all that with a grain of salt, but I for whether whether they are right or wrong or or hyperbolic, it is causing folks in our space in education to ask this question.

How are you thinking about it? And do you I mean and have you made it maybe even like do you have a perspective or are you still sort of trying to learn? No, I have a very deep perspective.

You know the teach AI initiative has a whole project called guidance on the future of CS education in age of AI. I didn’t know that. I was teeing it up.

Yeah. And it and it touches on this very subject by just not being afraid to ask the hard questions. And and you know when I talk about computer science the future of computer science education to general education crowds I let them know that the questions that we’re asking are the same questions they should be asking.

For example, what AI experiences should well it’s just really every student not just computer science students but what AI experiences should at least computer science students have? What are the foundational AI experiences for the field and that’s going to differ for u English, social studies, math etc. But you got to ask that question. You also got to ask is learning to blank still important in the case of computer science.

Is learning to program still important? But is learning to write still important in English? Right?

Is learning to something else in some other field? Is learning to draw in art class still important or paint. And so we’re asking these questions and you know the answers are quite nuanced because these people at their level simplify things for headlines for whatever you know funding whatever.

And the truth is is that the biggest difference between what they’re talking about and what we’re talking about is that they’re talking about industry and the workforce. And that’s their perspective. We’re talking about education and ultimately like we learn lots of stuff that we actually have machines doing for us when we were adults and it’s still valuable.

So it’s not like you know it’s you know right then and there we can start with that. But, you know, I have a whole list of reasons why kids should still learn to code but in an evolved way that utilizes AI. Yeah.

Like I mean this is something that we’ve been thinking about in terms of you know you spend years just learning code writing code and then you get onto the job and then that’s where you’re often learning you know working with customers or team members and you know building sort of like these like like the soft skills the durable skills however you want to call them. You know if AI is taking allowing us to spend less time learning and writing code then perhaps that means even in the process of learning computer science you’re actually building some of those skills before you’re thrust into either the workplace or to to college. Yes.

I mean let let me give you just my top reasons why computer science is so important. So let’s start off with this. When these people are talking about computer science they’re mainly talking about coding or programming.

And a lot of them actually just straight up say co coding you don’t need to learn to code. They don’t say learn computer science they say you don’t need to learn to code. Or if they’re saying computer science they they actually just mean coding and programming.

And you know fact is is that computer science education covers much more than just coding. It actually does cover AI covers data science. It covers social and ethical impacts.

It covers you know how these machines are even built. And lots and lots of other topics as well, cyber security. So saying that you don’t need to learn computer science because AI can code, that only covers like a subset of what we consider computer science education.

Second, I’d say that even if computer science was just coding in education and AI could do a perfect job of it, the purpose of learning things in school is not just about the product. It’s also about the process and what students learn in that process. And there’s very few activities you can do as a student that allow you to examine your thinking as much as coding because you’re putting this very elaborate process of thinking into a medium that you can examine and we call it, you know, debug, right?

And then refine. And that’s beautiful. It’s a wonderful metacognitive experience.

That all kids should have. And frankly, a lot of them don’t. So, that’s yet another reason why learning to code is still important.

And then I’ll just add one more just for fun. You know, the software engineering industry is probably the industry that has embraced AI tools the most. You know, GitHub surveys year after year show that more than 90% of software engineers are using AI tools and you don’t find that in any other field.

And so what’s beautiful is that students in computer science class can start getting familiar with like the effective use of AI tools in their high school experience and start to learn and just kind of almost transfer that experience to using AI in in other aspects of their life. You know, just learning to evaluate outputs, learning to refine the outputs, learning when to use the assistant and when not to use the assistant. This this question of like how do we get folks in a way that in a place where they can use AI really effectively at work.

It’s something that I’ve also been ruminating on quite a lot because you know at our team I don’t know if this is the case at code but at our team it we’ve realized it’s actually a lot more complicated than just you know hey folks we want you to really use AI tools and find ways to to harness them to be more not just more productive but to augment your work and unlock your creativity but in practice there’s a lot of like sort of small tactical things like which tool yes do you use And sometimes, you know, tools that have built-in AI are not using the latest and greatest reasoning model. Sometimes they have sort of pre-prompting and and sometimes you don’t want your team to use AI. Sometimes that that human authentic authentic component especially with you know if you’re interacting with schools or with partners you know I wouldn’t I wouldn’t dain to send you an AI generated email Pat now if you’ve if you’ve sent me one you’re very good because I I I pride myself on being able to kind of catch stuff like that and I and I feel like your emails always are very clearly human but just to give you some examples right like Oh, there’s so much nuance in that.

It’s like it is an art, not a science. There is no algorithm that you can teach that’s like use AI in this case or like you know a decision tree. I mean is that are you finding the same thing?

I mean is code doing internal trainings or are you kind of just letting folks feel it out? No, we we are do I mean sorry the no is we are not just letting people feel it out. We are there’s you know there’s a whole I guess a business yeah our business team our our people operations team has done a number of things including giving us a stipend of $500 a year to explore a variety of tools whatever $500 can buy.

And has set up opportunities for people to share like what they’re learning from their experience with their peers. Thank goodness, right? Like we’re walking the walk that we’re talking.

So, now now I can’t tell you that I we don’t have like some kind of like AI principles for the you know principles for the use of AI at code.org. We don’t have anything as explicit as that. Even our curriculum development process right now, it’s not like it’s baked in from a like a technical platform level, like folks are using these other apps and then they’re just doing what they’re doing and all that, but it’s it’s not like we have a an actual technical process where that’s that utilizes generative AI to inform our curriculum so I I mentioned because some orgs do have that, Alex, and I’m jealous of them.

Are you jealous? I I’m skeptical. Well, they say it’s useful and worthwhile.

In fact, I was talking to one of these orgs. That’s who I was jealous of and they’re like a small or they said, "Yeah, we have a whole technical process like a built-in something some curricai enabled curriculum developer that they crafted themselves and they’re a small team and they’ve found it quite useful." And I’ve looked at some of their stuff and it ain’t bad. So they said it’s multiplied their productivity.

Yeah, this is interesting. Like the question is and it almost would be better if you don’t tell me the name of the org and maybe you give me three or four orgs curriculum and and I try to find because seriously I mean I think if if we can’t tell the difference in the output set aside sort of like what it means to replace humans with AI. It’s just like if I can’t tell the difference between or if a teacher can’t tell the difference between something that’s AI generated or written by a human, does it matter?

Is there some sort of intrinsic value in human labor? It depends on the context. Just like I said with the whole like birthday wish thing, with the birthday message.

Yeah. Yeah. It just depends on the context.

That’s what I love about this AI stuff. So super nuanced like you know it yeah it’s just it’s it’s so nuanced because it’s it’s about intelligence and creation and evaluation and ethics all at once. So like you you can’t ever just paint it into a corner.

And you know, it’s funny, Alex. I was just thinking about this recently, like these conversations that we’re having right now, we may not get answers to them, like or have like any type of societal consensus, like deliberate societal consensus, but a consensus will be built and most of these questions just won’t matter. That’s what I think.

I think they just won’t matter. What do you mean? Like we’re just not going to we’re going to move past sort of the metaphor the metaphysical layer of discussion around AI and it’s just going to be just so seamless.

Let me give you an example. Let me give you an example, Alex. Anthropomorphic language when describing AI and how AI works.

Man, you know, I understand. Look, look, I I mean, we we even put that as an issue in the framework on purpose because it it ultimately it’s it’s a reflection using anthropomorphic language as a kid, as a student ultimately reflects your mental model for AI and we don’t want people to have erroneous mental models. So therefore, we language matters.

But you know what? Give it a couple years, everyone’s just going to use, you know, I partner with AI or AI made me feel this way or, you know, my AI was unhappy today or something, you know, and people are just going to get it. People are going to know, no, we know that AI ain’t alive.

Like, I use this language. I use it loosely, but no one believes that AI is alive or ascension or whatever. We’re just we’re just using language because it’s gone so sophisticated.

It’s basically acting like that way. But I know it’s not alive. M so like all battling around language it ain’t going to matter.

That’s what I’m saying. It’s just it’s just not going to matter. It it’s going to matter at a K-12 level at a at a point but for most folks it’s just a it isn’t going to matter.

I think you’re right. Even though I don’t agree with you that it doesn’t matter. Oh, it does.

I do think it matters. I’m saying it it does matter but it doesn’t I’m saying like it’s not You know what I’m saying? Like Yeah, I do.

So, actually I mean so let me I don’t want to Yeah. I don’t want to misrepresent. So what what what you’re saying just bring me back to you.

What you’re saying is yes it is a really interesting question as to what the implications are of imbuing AI with this sort of like agency or this sense of like being a a thing that you’re interacting with as opposed to just sort of like a technology system. But but as with the whole thing about privacy, you know, we had all this hubbaloo about our data and privacy and I remember GDPR and I was I was working in Europe around the time that GDPR was really you know like at the center stage and nobody I mean like nobody can really authentically tell you that oh I really you know I read the terms and conditions I keep track of where my data is used. Everybody has the Ring cameras.

They’re using Tik Tok, which by the way, I didn’t know this, but it actually shares not blind and anonymized data, but just all of your data. Full stop. Whole bore.

All of your data is out. So, we’ve kind of and and I cannot tell you how many panels I attended where people were just obsessed with this idea of like, how are we going to make sure that people have control over their data? This is important to them.

Policy is the most policy people. Yeah. I I do feel like this is where education is such a powerful medium because it is it is not the sexy I mean it’s unsexy, right?

It’s like you’re you’re not in Washington DC. You’re in these often, you know, kind of old buildings, maybe even like slightly musty classrooms, but you’re talking to people that are literally like, you know, cultivating, you know, hundreds of people into this world. And there’s there’s a lot of excite excitement but also you know responsibility in terms of so to bring us back to your question about why is computer science important and how do we even talk about the value of education I mean you’re that’s kind of where we’re landing right is if you want to address the future of computer science you actually have to step back and say well what is the purpose of education yes like why do we teach students about art even though they’re not all going to become artists why do we have them read Shakespeare even though you know I I can’t tell the last time I actually, you know, quoted Shakes here.

I think I’d probably get come off as a bit of My biggest argument for learning computer science regardless of an AI context. It definitely applies to an AI context, though. My biggest argument for learning computer science is what I was getting at with the whole like you’re putting out your thoughts and your creativity into a medium that you can debug and and refine and all that.

My there is a a beauty and a joy in being able to like being empowered enough to create technology that you otherwise thought was just a thing that other people created in some mysterious way and just and just gifted to you. Like we live in a super duper digital world and yet so many kids are just consumers, passive consumers of the media and the technologies themselves. And if I can give kids an experience like where they’re actually changing those technologies and then I can turn them towards thinking about real problems.

Oh man, that’s that’s why I do this. That’s why I do this. And so if they’re using AI to help them do that and they’re still having that wonderful experience, cool.

Like cool. Let me just evolve kind of what I’m doing here so that I’m not teaching like them the I’m not teaching them to write code as much anymore, but maybe to read code and evaluate code and debug code. Cool.

Great. But like you you said it so simply, but like this is like the entire debate is it’s not just about teaching the right code. It’s about teaching them how to do things with code.

Yes. And I think this is like the same you know when we think about like we do a lot of work with English teachers and you know social studies teachers who are trying to figure out how do we deal with cheating and I’m like well it’s not cheating it’s really shortcut. But like stepping back it is important for student like here are the analoges.

It’s like you need to be able to write code. You don’t want someone who doesn’t know any has never written a line of code in the same way that you need to be able to be able to write an essay. But today if in English class if students are writing in some cases hundreds of essays a year, right?

Like surely that’s not actually what English class is about is being really good at writing essays. I haven’t written an essay. I’ve written a lot but it’s not essay.

It’s a different it’s varying forms of varying formats. It’s often sometimes I’m speaking, sometimes I’m on panels. The essay writing is actually about conveying your knowledge and your thinking on a topic.

And so you’re you’re basically describing this evolution of like maybe h like how we teach more so than what we teach. Is that an accurate reflection of this? Because it’s so nuanced.

But I think that’s actually what we need to do right now is help teachers unpack like it’s not you’re not important anymore. What you’re teaching isn’t important because AI is going to replace it. But it’s also not you can just ignore AI.

Say that again. Like there’s there’s two schools. There’s like the folks that are like the AI is just going to displace learning.

We need to just keep it out of the classroom. Okay. Yep.

Right. As long as possible. And there’s the other end of the spectrum which is we go all in on AI and AI is going to just replace the need for us to teach these things and so let’s just focus on you know self-actualization.

And I think you and I are sort of in this like middle ground where it’s like sure we can’t ignore AI. But we also need to you know but what like the project of education is still very important and so we can’t let go of like it is important for students to learn to read and write and to learn math and to learn computer science and so how do you sort of balance those things and well like let’s get to AI literacy actually because you know what’s beautiful about AI literacy is that it it’s not a new thing it takes bits and pieces from lots of things puts it in a relev relevant context that is affecting everyone right now and you know both reinforces and supercharges the learning of these other things and so it leads us into that promised land of interdisciplinary learning that I think that you were kind of alluding to just now you know I think taking AI literacy very seriously you published a framework code’s initiative to teach AI but I think code was you know driving that this is like really you like your team. Yeah.

The aiteracy framework was a is a project that was led by the European Commission, the OECD, code.org with a whole group of international experts, some of which you know from the US there are three Dr. Paty Ruiz from Digital Promise, Dr. Joseph South from ISTY ASCD. And Dr. Victor Lee from Stanford. And then there a whole bunch of other doctor people and academics from all over the world in the that that make up the the rest of that expert group.

I know a lot of other thinking went into this. So even though those are the listed people, you mentioned the teach AI community. I mean even aiEDU’s AI readiness framework a lot of these ideas you know actually Alex the thing that I took away from the AI readiness framework that that informed like a key decision in the in the framework was the idea of not trying to identify new skills for AI like just like it they there aren’t new skills they’re just skills that just have mattered before and matter now and and it we just need to frame them in an AI context, but they still matter and and and what I actually think thinking about one of my favorite skills in the set of seven skills we identified as relevant to AI literacy is actually self and social awareness which isn’t your typical like techy you know communication, collaboration, problem solving, all these things can show up in some type of like techleaning framework or a framework about a technology, but self and social awareness, you know, if anything that might be one of the like priority skills that people need.

And this kind of gets into the whole discussion of like like the human the more human side of AI literacy. So, you know, again that this is that’s the framework. It it it it it learned from lots of other frameworks but it also I feel like it it it it it’s added a bunch as well you know that there are four domains engaging AI creating with AI designing managing AI and designing AI and you know the the last two are I think are very worthwhile additions to the thinking about AI literacy you know managing AI is straight up what you think it’s about it’s about AI I agents and AI teammates and understanding capabilities and limitations of humans and AI and when to augment and when to automate and and even deciding whether or not to use AI based on the nature of a task and then designing AI really gets into my constructionist roots because to truly understand something you need to get in there and understand how it works and get hands-on.

No, we don’t need a whole bunch of AI engineers, though we actually do to for us competitiveness. But putting that aside, you know, not every kid is going to become an AI engineer. So, designing AI is not about setting them up for that path.

It’s just about giving them a hands-on experience because of all technologies now of all technologies. We had this complicated AI thing and people just, you know, people aren’t even coding and learning computer science. Now they’re now this AI thing and we want them to be hands-on.

It’s like crazy talk for most people. But in reality, as you know, because you’ve been in this game for a while, it’s not actually crazy talk. It’s just a lot of people just haven’t had the experience at a young age or had the experience at all actually shaping AI’s behavior.

Yeah. And this is and and what’s powerful about the way you’re framing this as as you put it is it’s not just about having students be really effective and savvy users of AI and navigate that world, but it’s a chance to to get closer to this like this golden fleece of how do we how do we truly do interdisciplinary learning especially in the context of technology. And that’s something that code has been this is not the first time code has thought about this nor the computer science movement.

I mean it’s there’s been a lot of efforts to bring other teachers into exploration about code. I mean hour of code I know is certainly not just computer science teachers who are facilitating those experiences. I mean do you see do you see AI literacy as a chance to kind of move that bull forward?

Is it how big of how much of a game changer is is AI literacy in terms of our the ability to bring non- STEM teachers into into that work? Yeah, actually I think of it the I’ll answer that question, but I actually think about it the opposite way. I think I think that as we all know, you know, STEM careers, learning STEM has really dominated a lot of the education talk, education workforce talk for 10, 15 years, maybe even 20 years.

And rightly so because of our job needs and our and our deficits in STEM education and and you know human enrollment in the humanities has dropped quite a lot over the same 10 15 20 years. I think AI literacy shines a light on the need for a liberal arts education. Again but an evolved one, an evolved one and where you know that there is no line between or the line has been blurred between STEM education and liberal arts educ it all becomes a liberal arts education.

Honestly, that’s that’s one way to think about it. And so liberal arts and STEM is now one thing over here. And then straight up hardcore STEM is one thing.

And and that’s what we have and I think that’s beautiful. This is this is fascinating. I was just talking to somebody about the future of you know a senior person a senior person on the research team at a really big technology company and there was this sort of commiseration around like we have no idea what the future of postsecary is going to look like.

It just it’s just so perplexing. I think you’re actually on to something. I think this idea of like okay you the vast majority of students are going into general liberal arts maybe with with focus areas.

So you might have you saw kids focusing on computer science or some kids focusing on you know marketing and communications but but a lot of this is actually building sort of the general ability to learn building durable skills. Yes. And and yes for a subset perhaps there is this track which is like the AI engineer.

Yes, the astrophysicist. Yes. But I think it was like physicists are one of the most they’re actually there’s like the I think the the they have a higher unemployment rate than it’s like they’re like number two or three on the list or they’re very high up and you’re like why physicists and it’s just it’s this it’s actually very niche.

I’ve also heard by the way an interesting take that this is like the Y cominator survey of their there like a there was a podcast about the survey of their their cohort and the fact that a lot of them are are using AI to write code. What they actually said is it’s actually bringing allowing folks in the hard sciences that weren’t necessarily majoring in computer science the chance to bring their expertise and depth in terms of computational thinking. Yes.

And like logical thinking. So that’s kind of exciting. It’s like the that’s why this story about like oh you know computer science as a as a pathway is you know as like there’s like the unemployment rate is looking higher than usual.

But oh that’s a I’m increasingly of the opinion that that is that is a un that is it’s not nuance. It’s not taking into account the fact that yes there’s a lot of jobs are not computer science jobs but they’re now being imbued with technology. Yes.

Costco I just learned that Costco went from I think 200 to 2,000 technologists over the last x years. I don’t know if those are computer scientists, right? They’re they’re but my guess is those are those are jobs that if you had a degree in computer science or background in computer science you’d you’d do well.

You know I I was looking at BLS data projections and you know BLS projections could totally be wrong. But this just came out I don’t know four or five months ago and they said that between 2023 and 2033 that software engineering occupations will actually grow by I don’t know it was like 11 16 or 19% I can’t remember it was one of those numbers but definitely at a higher rate than just job growth overall or or even like similarish jobs but they said that programming jobs and see notice how they delineate between software engineering and programming. They say programming, oh that’s just going down.

Because you know that’s just like the basic stuff like coding. But software engineering, software development occupations, they involve like user interface design and like working towards like u like like working towards a much more a larger picture like thinking from a larger a more systems level thinking deployment and actual like people using it. Thus the UX and UI work.

So I’m I when I see like employ unemployment I just know it’s a a lot of nuance. I know it’s our economic situation in this country right now. I know that for some of the tech companies actually I know a lot of Microsoft people who just got released per this last round where like thousands of people were were let go.

A lot of it was because a lot of these people were just really expensive. They had reached a point where they were really expensive and Microsoft wanted to figure out like how to shave off like how how to save money and probably use it I don’t know for more AI training. I I don’t know what and and and and so it it wasn’t and and these people are going to find other jobs that the people who need to worry and that’s what we’re seeing right now is these kids who are just graduating from these schools and expecting to get an easy job like it was like 5 10 years ago.

And you know why they aren’t? It’s not because AI’s replaced all computer science jobs or whatever. It’s just because there’s so many of y’all.

And that’s honestly partly code.org’s ’s fault because we we got a lot of kids interested and they continued to pursue it in in college and a lot of them might a lot of the higher ed programs probably have not evolved with the times and so now there’s a lot of kids who just know a certain model of thinking about computing and it and there’s just too many of them and it might not be as relevant as the kids who also took an AI or data science course in their experience. Yeah. I don’t know if it’s your fault though.

I think it’s I mean I think I think postsecary I think postsecary is but even it’s like K-12 really has no control over what happens in postsecary and I’ve seen this in it’s very different group. So is it the spaces where you and I operate in there’s lots of folks from academia but they’re generally as my as I’ve seen it there ed experts in education in K-12 education. I’ve been in very few like settings where there’s actually this holistic conversation about K20.

Well, that’s another that’s another way to make the most of this AI opportunity to expand the conversation to K20 now and really think about it like deeply like that. Because we’re kind of all in the same boat at least per this AI stuff, right? I mean, you know, the same cheating conversation in college is the same cheating conversation in high school.

So, that kind of unites Yeah. People now we’re able to do what you were suggesting Alex like let’s think deeper about the purpose of education but let’s think about it like holistically now K20 it’s all the is it is it is thrusting upon us it’s it is it is bringing this conversation is long overdue but I think what’s powerful is it’s bringing to every dinner table everybody’s talking about it whether or not they actually know anything about education policy because we’re all touching and feeling it yes and the professors and the teachers, what they’re seeing is the homework assignments, those grades are going up and the test scores are going down. And I feel for them, you know, you know, I’m not one of those people who are like, "Oh, y’all just need to rethink your assignments." And I mean, I certainly say that they do need to rethink their assignment, right?

But like, I know it’s not easy and I know I understand. I mean, I was again, I can just blink and I’m back in the classroom and and I know this kid just totally copied this code from another kid because it’s so easy to you just swap files and edit some stuff and I know I know how that burns you as an educator and and so I I feel their pain. I do.

I feel their pain. And I know that the easy way out is to use some type of detection tool of some sort, but it’s it’s so lame. I’m I’d love to talk to a teacher who’s totally using those detection tools and just to understand like like the pros and cons and like how it’s played out.

Do you you know I I say like even if the content detection tools were perfect would you want to set up a police state in your classroom where everything has to be evaluated for authenticity and and and and all that like that’s not fun. Like I just want to just I want to trust kids. I don’t want to have to like Well, yeah.

And if you don’t, you know, I don’t think too many kids listen to this podcast, so I don’t think I’m revealing too much, but I think the dirty secret is if you’re a student and a teacher accuses you of using AI and doesn’t m really matter what detection tool they have. You know, you can just dig in because those detection tools are not foolproof. And if you just say, "Look, no, I actually did write this.

That detection tool is wrong." That’s kind of the end of the conversation unless the teacher is now to your point unless there was like unless that teacher keystroke you know like like keystroke monitoring on laptops I mean that that’s actually you know maybe that is the police state is maybe the solution for schools that don’t want to evolve. That’s that’s a scary thought. Yeah.

But yeah, I definitely feel for my educator peers and and and the difficulty of of of validating learning now. But doesn’t that bring us to AI literacy? Because what you’re describing is a is a set of skills that that are yes going to be important for students but even for teachers like ultimately their ability to to redesign these assignments I don’t know how they could do it without understanding the AI and how to use it and how to wield it it’s you know it and that’s hard because that’s now another thing they need to learn there isn’t a quick fix well you know here’s a little dirty secret about frame frameworks.

Yes, teachers are one of the number one audiences, one of the major audiences or one of the most important audiences. But teachers don’t really like use frameworks. They use curriculum or resources created by people who use the frameworks or they get trained by people who use the frameworks to craft relevant professional learning agendas.

Right? So I am not worried considering that there are bazillion AI and education shops out there these days and everyone’s an expert. I’m not worried that teachers won’t have useful guidance or curriculum, off-the-shelf curriculum that kind of does the work for them.

Maybe I’m I’m being too hopeful, but in our world of open education resources and the fact that Gen AI can do a pretty good job of creating a lesson plan, I I’m not too worried about the the operationalization of AI literacy or like saddling teachers with with too much load. Yeah, I mean there’s going to be a lot of work to be done. Alex, and I say that as we’re going into the summer.

Alex, what is the hottest thing that AIE Edu has planned for the future? And what is the biggest thing on your mind right now that if you could just do it awesome, you’d be so happy? H I try not to make these about us, but yeah, reimagining school like school transformation and actually following through and what’s different this time around because we’ve been talking about school transformation for decades.

So, you know, observers would be right to kind of be skeptical that like okay, what’s different this time around? The answer is the AI moment. This is like we cannot ignore it.

People no matter how much they want to ignore it they’ll be it is forced on them we are going to be forced to deal with this and you know I think our big thing is let’s let’s let’s harness this the the the disruption that it is going to usher upon us and and use that to actually make like address long-standing problems in the school that are also tied to student success in the age of AI things like sure durable skills and project based learning but also just, you know, making learning meaningful and engaging. And school where students feel like what they’re learning is relevant. Because we have like, you know, sometimes a quarter, sometimes 40% of students in some of the districts we work with are not showing up to school.

And so it kind of doesn’t matter what the curriculum is and how great the teachers are and how they adapt their assignments if the kids aren’t in the classroom. And that’s a really hard thing. But you know, you asked for the big thing.

That’s the big thing. So Alex, wait. So, school, reimagining school, are you telling me that you all are engaged in solutions that will get kids to just show up at school in the first place?

Well, that’s what we’d like to do. We don’t have the the data yet because it’s it’s going to take time to actually get that data, but that is the goal. Awesome.

Make learning more engaging and meaningful. And it’s so multifaceted because it’s not about just curriculum. This is about teachers.

Well, that’s what I’m saying. Teacher training. It’s about it’s about money and and and and policy and things outside of our usual scope actually.

It’s about family. So, so now Yes. So you were get so so that that is actually very that that is an important sobering add-on which is there’s a lot of this is multi-dimensional causes for absenteeism.

And learning not being engaging enough is is part but but but actually quite small for so no doubt no doubt. Yeah, that’s what I was like, wow, if Alex is doing that, you know what’s funny, Alex? Sometimes I think I want to just bag all this stuff.

Like, what am I doing? Like, I should be working on absenteeism because of what you just said. Like, I should be working with families.

That’s what I should be doing. I should be working on economic policy. I you know what I mean?

Like that that’s really going to I’ll let all the other people figure out the education stuff. I’m going to focus on like just getting kids into the school. I I I sometimes randomly think about that because I just want I just want to think about how I spend my time most wisely.

Well, that’s a hard thing. I I still like deep down there’s like why are kids cheating? Kids are cheating because they just think this is busy work that’s not that’s not meaningful.

Like you you you teachers feel it. There’s just this this intuition that like kids are phoning it in. And look that no organization can save the world.

That’s the thing. You got to pick you pick the the problems you’re going to try to solve. But that doesn’t mean you can’t think big.

That doesn’t mean that you can’t push a conversation about, well, maybe we do need to push for more funding if we actually care about workforce readiness. And maybe that does mean that if you’re a, you know, a policy maker that’s asking the question, well, what can I do to make sure that students are better prepared? Or perhaps it’s also making sure that their schools are adequately funded and their communities have you know access to health care and healthy food.

I mean you know it’s like there’s a world where you just don’t shy away from those conversations even if it’s complicated. It’s like well yeah that that is the hard thing but it is hard but adding a new subject to the K-12 menu was hard but code.org decides to tackle it. You know you know about what you said like no organization can save the world.

You know, I I have this this issue, this delusion that no, actually, there are organizations that can save the world. And when I thought about what you just said, I instantly thought about the Gates Foundation and Bill Gates giving I don’t know how much over the next 20 years. Like how much of money is he is he ultimately going to give over the next 20 years?

Tens of billions. Infinite. Yeah, it’s mindboggling.

Yeah. You know what? And I know what they’ve done for childhood mortality and, you know, malaria and stuff like that.

They’ve saved they can draw a direct line between their money and kids lives being saved. I’m like, that’s to that’s saving the world to me. And I know that they could do so much more if they just had the right people kind of guiding the ship, engaging with people and all that.

And I I I actually do believe in an organization like that that they could save the world. Well, if you’re not if you’re not trying, what are we what are we here for? It’s not the money.

Yeah. Pat, this was really fun. And also just beginning, I think, you know, it’ll be it’ll be cool.

I know that you have other big stuff cooking as always. I mean, code.org always has stuff cooking. But I’m very excited to see what’s coming next and maybe we can find some more time to to jump back on onto the pod.

Yeah. I don’t know. Is it a pod?

I’m not sure if it’s a pod actually. This more of a YouTube show, but nonetheless, jump back on mics and virtual screens or maybe in person. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, for sure in person very soon.