I think this is one of the biggest missed opportunities in education.

We put "technology" in front of students, but mostly in the form of locked-down devices, prescribed apps, and step-by-step workflows. That teaches compliance, not understanding.

There's a huge difference between using software and understanding how it works, how to break it, fix it, or build your own.

Basic exposure to things like Linux, hardware setup, networking, and programming would give kids agency instead of just familiarity. Even if they don't pursue tech careers, they'd come out far more capable of navigating (and questioning) the systems around them.

Digital safety is a big one. Not just "don’t click bad links" but actual operational awareness: privacy, tracking, permissions, data ownership. The stuff that matters in reality.

I get that there are constraints like funding, vendor lock-in, teacher workload, curriculum pressure. But the current model feels like it's optimised to produce competent consumer users of systems, not people who can shape them.

Feels like a massive wasted opportunity.