I like your thinking, @gorillapaws. You’re absolutely right.
And @meiosis, I think that people should know about and have the basic skills of plumbing, carpentry, nursing, farming, auto mechanics (diesel would be nice, too), sewing, cooking… you name it. Specialization is great for capitalism, and it works very well for us… now, and for the most part.
But if you know a lot about a lot, it makes it a lot easier to decide what to specialize in, makes you fit in better when you do, and makes you more valuable when you need to interact with “the plumber”, “the auto mechanic”, etc. instead of just blindly trusting that person’s skill and honesty. And learning logic and process design helps anyone do anything, from making a meal to writing a sentence.
However… I still think that basic language and math skills come first, and we’re not even there yet. Maybe “learning programming” would be an entry path into the more fundamental skills, in the same way that some teachers teach reading and math skills by having boys who are sports-crazy read accounts of games and analyze box scores in the newspaper sports pages.