Where I live the only kids who program are those who are lucky enough to have a teacher interested in robots. They are taught to program robots as a fun activity rather than a part of the curriculum.
I understand your sentiment about the opportunity costs for those with computing knowledge, but it wouldn’t be too hard to require teachers to do a basic computing unit at university. In the same way the best mathematicians are not usually school teachers, yet “regular” teachers seem to perform sufficiently.
I suffer from this too. I can spend all night reading x y or z out of my own interest, but turn it into an assignment, and its like I cannot avoid pushing it to the very last minute possible. Of course I thought it would help by majoring in my interest, but that only made me see the interest as another academic exercise and drove me off it to an extent, and didn't in fact cure me of my academic block.
I understand your sentiment about the opportunity costs for those with computing knowledge, but it wouldn’t be too hard to require teachers to do a basic computing unit at university. In the same way the best mathematicians are not usually school teachers, yet “regular” teachers seem to perform sufficiently.