What Most Schools Don't Teach - Short Film

Learn about a new "superpower" that isn't being taught in 90% of US schools.

Starring Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, will.i.am, Chris Bosh, Jack Dorsey, Tony Hsieh, Drew Houston, Gabe Newell, Ruchi Sanghvi, Elena Silenok, Vanessa Hurst, and Hadi Partovi.

Directed by Leslie Chilcott.

"Everybody in this country should learn how to program a computer...

because it teaches you how to think." - Steve Jobs

What do you want to be when you grow up Olivia?

An astronaut.

I want to be a fashion designer.

A basketball player.

I want to be an actor.

A doctor.

A teacher.

A chef.

An artist.

What do you want to be when you grow up?

A mermaid.

Do you know what a computer programmer is?

Yeah... no.

No.

Ummmm, no.

I think is't something that has codes, and it's a what, that decodes a mystery.

I think, that they...

Ummmm, wait what?

... computer programmer.

... no...

Nowdays, just about everything requires some form of programming.

So... what is it?

Programming is basically explaining to your computer what you want it to do for you.

When you're programming you're teaching possibly the stupidest thing in the entire universe,

a computer, how to do something.

Programming is one of the only things in the world that you can do where,

you can sit down and just make something completely new from scratch,

you know whatever you want.

It's really not unlike kind of playing an instrument or something, or playing a sport.

It starts out being very intimidating, but you kind of get the hang of it over time.

Coding is something that can be learned.

And I know it can be intimidating and a lot of things are intimidating.

But you know, what isn't?

A lot of the coding that people do is actually fairly simple.

It's more about the process of breaking down problems,

than coming up with complicated algorithms as people traditionally think about it.

Well if it's fairly simple, why aren't there more of us doing it?

Over the next 10 years there will be 1.4 million jobs in computer science,

and only about 400,000 grads qualified for those jobs.

That's a shortage of a million people.

So how do you start?

I was obsessed with maps when I was a kid.

And cities specifically.

So I taught myself how to program.

I had a very clear goal of what I wanted to do,

which was to see a map of the city on my screen and play with it

put things on the map and move things around the map

see what was happening in the city, how it worked

how it lived, how it breathed.

The best early thing was actually using software to

decide when the classes in my school would meet.

And that put me in a position to decide which girls were in my class.

The first program I wrote asked things like:

"What's your favorite color?", or "How old are you?"

I first learned how to make a green circle and a red square appear on the screen.

The first time I actually had something come up and say "Hello World!".

And I made a computer do that, it was just astonishing!

When I finally learned a little bit of programming that blank wall resolved into a bunch of doors.

And you open them and finally you start to open enough doors the that light comes in.

And to me a finished program is like a structure filled with light.

All the corners are illuminated, you understand the structure of it.

It's a really serene feeling, to have completed that.

It took me some time to realise that creating things with your hands,

or creating code, creating programs.

It's just a different way to express creativity.

I think right now there's a big emergence of the culture of making.

People who make their own scarves and hats.

People who write their own apps.

Now it's just limited by your imagination.

And sort of, what kinds of ideas can you...

what kind of understanding can you build into the computers,

that it can do these things that were previously impossible.

All great things are built in teams.

And when you collaborate with other smart people.

You're testing your ideas, you're stimulating each other.

That's what makes us successful.

It's not some flash or brilliance by somebody who then codes 24 hours a day for three weeks.

The magic happens when we're all on the same page, collaborating and building something together.

There's a much greater need in the world for engineers and for people who can write code,

then there will ever be supply.

And so we all live these very charmed lives.

To get the very best people, we try to make the office as awesome as possible.

[what would you do if you weren't afraid?]

We have a fantastic chef!

Free food!

Breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Free laundry.

Snacks.

Even places to play, and video games and scooters.

There's all these kind of interesting things around the office,

and places were people can play or relax,

or go to think or play music or be creative.

I went on the Bureau of Labour statistics for the United States,

and there's about a third of the pie that's all the things you would expect

their working in the government

their working in typical technology jobs.

But then, the rest of the pie, it was the majority of the pie.

Just split down into these little teeny slices of every industry imaginable!

And what it is, is computers are everywhere!

You want to work in agriculture?

Do you want to work in entertainment?

Do you want to work in manufacturing? It's just all over!

Here we are in 2013, we all depend on technology to communicate.

To bank.

Information, and none of us know how to read and write code!

So you guys, what else? Who else has an idea of what we can change with our programming?

What else can we do?

Tiffany?

What I saw my students take away from using Scratch and programming in our classroom.

Is that they were willing to push through problems.

It really builds critical thinking.

It builds problem solving.

And it's something they can then apply to math in the classroom, or their reading skills.

We integrated science with this programming and I saw my scores go up 30%.

When I was in school I was in this after-school group called the "Whizz Kids".

And when people found out they laughed at me, you know all these things.

And I'm like man "I don't care, I think it's cool...

And you know I'm learning a lot. And some of my friends have jobs!"

It's important for these kids.

It should be mandatory.

To be a citizen on this planet.

To read and write code!

I just think you have to start small.

I think that's one of the biggest misconceptions computer science and programming overall is that,

you have to learn this big body of information before you can do anything.

You don't have to be a genius to know how to code. You need to be determined.

Addition, subtraction, that's about it.

You should probably know your multiplication tables.

You don't have to be a genius to code.

Do you have to be genius to read? Do you have to be genius to do math?

No.

No.

I think if someone had told me that software is really about humanity,

that it's really about helping people by using computer technology.

It would have changed my outlook a lot earlier.

Whether you are trying to make a lot of money or whether you just want to change the world,

computer programming is an incredibly empowering skill to learn.

To be able to actually come up with an idea and then see it in your hands,

and then be able to press a button and then have it be in millions of people's hands...

I think we're the first generation in the world that's really ever had that kind of experience.

The programmers of tomorrow are the wizards of the future.

You know you are going to look like you have magic powers compared to everybody else.

I think it's amazing.

It's the closest thing we have to a superpower.

Great coders are today's rockstars!

That's it!