Is my 7th grader falling behind? Code.org’s new leader offers insight and tips on AI’s ‘thinking era’

I recently asked my 13-year-old daughter, a seventh grader in Seattle Public Schools, how much she was currently learning about and/or using artificial intelligence. “Not at all?” he just asked me.

For a kid with an iPhone who interacts with Amazon’s Alexa every day, Kate uses AI more than she realizes. But aside from a STEM class he took as an elective in sixth grade, where he learned to write a simple game, he wasn’t getting any formal AI or computer science instruction this year at his middle school.

So I checked in with Karim Meghji, the new president and CEO at Code.org, a computer science education nonprofit in Seattle, about whether I should worry that Kate will be left behind and never command a $500,000 salary at OpenAI.

Meghji is in a good position to know the answer. The tech vet spent 10 years at RealNetworks and is the former CTO at Seattle-based digital remittance company Remitly. He joined Code.org in 2022 to serve as chief product officer, leading the organization’s AI-focused strategy, which was founded in 2013 by brothers Hadi and Ali Partovi with the goal of expanding computing education for K-12 students.

Today, Code.org says its AI curriculum has helped more than 6 million students learn basic concepts about technology, and more than 25 million students have completed tasks in their “AI Hour” campaign.

But while Meghji briefly suggested learning something Kate could do with the Code.org curriculum, her goal was not to advertise, and our conversation felt like two parents, or a parent and teacher, discussing the basics of understanding the technology that will continue to shape the community Kate lives and works in.

The “glass box” method.: Meghji believes that middle school serves as the perfect transition point from basic AI knowledge to real fluency, moving beyond introductory games to a “tickling time” where students can finally look under the hood. Just as students dissect frogs to understand biology, Meghji believes this is the stage where they must begin to “disassemble” AI models to understand the data and logic behind the technology.

“AI is a black box for many people in the world today. You put in information, you get something back,” said Meghji. “Our opinion is that it must be a glass box, and we need to give them a screwdriver and a hammer and let them get in there and get this thing out.”

Students should learn about different types of data and how they all work, including different ways to input information into AI models using data and context, and the how and why behind different AI results.

Apart from the technical features: People older and supposedly smarter than Kate are being fooled every day by content created by AI tools. That will not slow down.

And Meghji said students today most need to work in digital environments where they understand things like how human factors relate to design, and the ethics surrounding AI.

“These are two important aspects that are not technological, but about the use of technology that is very important as more of us become creators and creators,” he said.

Technical students also need to learn intangible skills that are important in almost any discipline. How do you work together? How do you communicate? How do you cooperate? How do you show, to do something better?

What if he can’t be a software engineer? Kate shows more interest these days in ceramics than computer science, and I have a shelf of moldy coffee mugs to prove it. But I’m smart enough to know — and have interviewed startup founders who agree — that AI is having an immediate impact on all kinds of jobs and businesses.

“AI fluency and computer science fundamentals are critical to almost every career experience you have,” Meghji said. “It doesn’t matter if you’re a software engineer, a biologist, a doctor, an architect, you interact and work with systems and tools, almost a good part of your day. And you have the ability to not only use those tools in the work you do, but to make them better and make your work better if you understand what’s going on.”

So being behind doesn’t just mean Kate isn’t learning to build her own big AI language model, it means she might not understand how to use it to make herself a better doctor or publisher.

Code.org aims to move students beyond “illiterate” interactions, which Meghji describes as simple, one-off instructions that treat AI as a “search revolution.” Instead, he wants students to engage in deep, multi-step discussions in which they challenge the tool and examine its “chain of reasoning.” By learning to direct and refine these autonomous systems, students can move from using technology to working with it effectively.

Final tips on where to start with babies and AI: There are many things about AI that worry and confuse me, so pushing my child to embrace technology skills has been slow. Meghji offered several ways to get started:

• Try them together in the following ways: Sit down as a family and explore AI tools for text, photos, and video as a group. The goal is to get some love and a layer of the child in the “parent structure” of guidance, ensuring that he learns to use these tools responsibly rather than just using them alone.
• A computer science advocate in the classroom: Meghji encourages parents and students to request specific curriculum, such as Code.org’s “Computer Science Discoveries,” which teaches middle school students to build games and websites while working directly with AI models.
• Adopt a “season of entreaty”: He recommends using platforms like Scratch or Code.org to keep new coding skills playful. By “exploring construction technology” – whether by using block-based codes or generating applications with AI tools – students develop the architect’s mindset necessary for any future career, “whether you’re a welder or a cancer researcher.”