Do High Schools Know What 'Computer Science' Is?

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.'"

Computer science ...

[gstoddart]

My prof drilled into me (and my degree matches because he fought for it) that it's Computing Science. Computer science is doing science on a computer -- Computing Science is is the science of computers.

Ah well, just some random nit-picking and pedantry. Either way, basic computer literacy is not "Computer Science".

Re:Computer science...

[Ritchie70]

I'm old, so the class I took in high school was called Typing. We had a 50/50 mix of IBM Selectrics and manual typewriters.

It's probably the most useful class I took in high school. But just because the modern version uses computers doesn't make it Computer Science. They should just keep calling it typing if you ask me.

We had Computer Programming classes too. The first level used TRS-80 Model III/IV BASIC. For the advanced class, which I never took, they used Apple II to do Pascal!

Re:California High schools are doing it wrong..

[keytoe]

While it's cool that you went to a school that provided such a rich and interesting IT curriculum, none of the things you mentioned are actually Computer Science. You're proving the point of the article, in fact.

Re:Computer Science = Algorithm Development

[Darinbob]

Computer science covers a lot more than algorithms. There's abstract mathematics, combinatorics, computability & complexity theory, digital electronics, VLSI, compilers, data structures, operating systems, networking, databases, software engineering, artificial intelligence, numerical analysis, and Duke Nuke'Em studies.