Teach Kids to Code! No! Teach Kids to Farm Not Code!

Last week there was a big hulla ballu over code.org's campaign to get kids coding early in life.  It's a veritable who's who of coding advocacy on their home page (although disappointingly no +Jeri Ryan or +Felicia Day (just kidding I had to find a way to work them in or I would lose my google+ geek street cred))   - Anyway the point is there aren't enough engineers, or other math / science types, being produced in America and coding in school will help fix that.  Some people dispute that idea but lets push that to the side and assume they are correct.  Is coding in school really the way to rectify the problem?

On the other side of the equation we have the hippies, illustrated by this comment (by an organic farmer and former coder):

Growing food is far more challenging, requires an order of magnitude more knowledge and continuous learning and dedication. It requires us to be connected with a real world of which we still know almost nothing compared to what there is to learn. The way we do it has huge intergenerational consequence for people and everything else that lives on this planet.

...

Why are programmers granted such high status and wealth in our society for living in a self-created self-indulgant intellectual world of constant escapism - and yet farmers are regarded with such distain when they operate on the most important boundary between society and the biosphere? It’s all very well stating that all human beings should learn to code (and dance and sing) but it is far far more important that all human beings learn to interact with the natural environment and understand the basics of food, water and shelter.”

First off I disagree with his comment about farmers being treated with disdain, I think the family farm is worshiped to the point of fetishism in America. In truth family farms and especially organic farms are nowhere near as productive as industrial farm operations, but I can live with that because the family farm, despite it's inefficiencies is part of what makes America great. On the organic farming side - well where would we be without self satisfied hipsters to make fun of?

Secondly - It just isn't practical to teach farming to every kid.  It is a land intensive process that just won't work in large urban centers.

So looking at both arguments it appears that they are pretty oppositional  but in reality they both have the same goal - learn how to evaluate and solve a problem efficiently.  There is a solution that would meet both needs though.  Bring back industrial arts in middle and high school.  When I was in school all boys had to take shop in 8th and 9th grade (yes I went to school in the misogynistic 70's) and it was an elective up until 12th grade.  There are a number of advantages to this approach:

1.  It ties together things like art (design), and math as well as English when you have to put together a project proposal.
2.  If you use tools like cad/cam, arduino and mindstorm you can integrate programming into the curriculum.
3.  It may not be farming but it does teach many of the skills that are used on farms and ranches.
4.  It's good career training.  There is a growing shortage of skilled machinists, electricians and other "manual" trades in the US.

In short it solves a number of needs.

I know I am not the first person to propose this idea (and definitely not the smartest) so why does it keep getting short shrift?