Do High Schools Know What 'Computer Science' Is? 564
theodp writes "The first rule of teaching high school-level Computer Science should be knowing what CS is-and-isn't. Unfortunately, many high schools offering 'Computer Science' really aren't. Using her old California high school as an example, now-a-real-CS-student Carolyn points out that one 'Computer Science' class (C101) touted keyboarding 'speeds in excess of 30 words per minute at 95% accuracy' as a desired outcome, while another (C120) boasted that students will learn to use hyperlinks to link to other sites. While such classes fill a need, she acknowledges, they should not be called Computer Science. What's the harm? 'Encouraging more girls to take computer classes as they are now might have the opposite of the desired effect,' she explains. 'More girls might get the impression that computer science is only advanced application use, which might turn them off to computer science.'"
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Computer science... (Score:5, Funny)
Easiest A I ever earned.
Fixed...obviously, I struggled a bit more with English :)
Re:I wouldn't even consider Programming 101 to be (Score:5, Funny)
This is also where departments separate the men from the boys (and women from girls).
And the large furry creatures from Alpha Centauri from the small furry creatures from Alpha Centauri.
Re:Rename the class (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Computer science... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:They Are Encouraging Girls to Take These Course (Score:5, Funny)
Still, even that wasn't much computer science and seemed closer to "C++ in a semester" style of teaching. You knew a language but you didn't quite get the really generalized concepts.
You could say, he didn't teach you pointers.
[Puts sun glasses on]
Yeaaaah!