I had a few computer classes like this, and it was so frustrating! They were useful skills, but taught with no creativity — just follow the steps in the book. And for students like me who had been messing around in Photoshop and PowerPoint for years at that point, there wasn’t a lot that we couldn’t have figured out ourselves.
Yeah, I agree. It’s a bit like that famous XKCD comic about experts overestimating general knowledge. We think that everyone would benefit from knowing a bit of programming, but really a lot of folks would benefit from learning things we don’t even consider basics (like using a mouse). Programming comes later, if they’re interested.
I think one thing that might be missing these days is a lack of focus on exploration and experimentation. Those computer classes that I hated were all about learning rote steps to do very specific things, rather than teaching kids how to poke around in menus to see what could be done. I spent a bunch of time as a kid messing around in Photoshop, and while some of that involved looking up tutorials to get specific effects, a lot of it was just clicking options in menus to see what changed and liberal use of CTRL-Z.
I might be overgeneralizing, but it feels like a lot of folks introduced to computers are hesitant to do anything because they’re worried about messing it up. And sure, it’s possible to delete a file accidentally. But there’s very little you can’t undo when you’re doing basic tasks. So I wonder if people need to be taught just enough skills to feel more confident (in fixing things or just asking for help) and then encouraged to try things, even if they make mistakes.