Chicago Public Schools Promoting Computer Science to Core Subject 236
dmiller1984 writes "The Chicago Public Schools, the third-largest public school system in the United States, announced a five-year plan today that would add at least one computer science course to every CPS high school, and elevate computer science to a core requirement instead of an elective. CPS announced this through a partnership with code.org, stating that the non-profit would provide free curriculum, professional development, and stipends for teachers."
Keyboarding (Score:5, Insightful)
Every pupil will be required to take the Keyboarding course.
The computer labs will fill with students who hate being there.
Re: Keyboarding (Score:3)
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The Typing of the Dead (Score:3)
Re:The Typing of the Dead (Score:4, Insightful)
Does Mario Teaches Typing work on recent Windows? (Score:2)
Re: Keyboarding (Score:5, Funny)
That's minus two points. I could mark off a few more for poor style, but you seem like a nice kid so I'll let it slide.
Re: Keyboarding (Score:2, Insightful)
If you want to program a computer you have to be better than one. If you're going to segfault on a comma there are real computers that require attention. Go back to school where i
Re: Keyboarding (Score:5, Insightful)
My current employer told me, years after the fact, that I got an interview specifically because my cover letter seemed so literate. Quality writing is the level-zero evaluation (quick and accessible) for anyone's level of education and attention to detail.
More specifically, the idea of programming a computer and being simultaneously sloppy on syntax is pretty mind-boggling -- and from experience the code turned out by people like that, not caring about how they communicate with other people (if it compiles, it's committed), is pretty hellish.
Re: Keyboarding (Score:4, Insightful)
It's all context.
A resume or cover letter has to be absolutely perfect. Two things bother me about mistakes on those: First, at least take the time to have a friend check your resume. How long would that take? If you don't care enough to do that, then why am I even reading this thing? Second, you have to be aware that there are grammar and spelling Nazis out there - some of them in HR and some in your chosen field. How can you possibly be good at critical thinking if you don't realize this and try to take this minimal step to assuage them? This is the first impression you will have on a potential employer!
On the other hand, some minor grammar or spelling (but really, spell check?) errors in internal documentation are no big deal, and certainly not worth kicking back a code or documentation review. Those only should happen when it changes the meaning or affects understanding somehow.
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Agreed. So, for example, Slashdot posts are really not that important in the grand scheme of things. I try to communicate clearly, but I'm sure a review would show that I do not proofread as I would for a published texts. Though the posts are recorded, the discussion is almost as ephemeral as real conversation and should be approached accordingly. But suppose you're going to write a Slashdot post where you dismiss the value of English courses (or at least a key exercise used to demonstrate
Re: Keyboarding (Score:4)
FTFM. What an illiterate ass. Doesn't even bother to proofread.
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How can you possibly be good at critical thinking if you don't realize this and try to take this minimal step to assuage them?
Perhaps they don't want to be sheep. Perhaps this is their way of eliminating worthless, incompetent, and superficial employers.
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I had considered that their goal may be to not get hired. I'm happy to help them in that regard.
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Hmmm, in addition - I just had a candidate request a second chance at an interview after he claimed to have slept through his alarm. Plausible, but perhaps it too is an elaborate ruse to weed out worthless, incompetent, superficial employers which are just like, punctuality Nazis, man. I'll have to think about this more. ;p
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But I've never had to make that choice, and it comes down to a long list of people to chose from that have demonstrated technical skills necessary for programming and engineering positions.
It seems rather unlikely to me that any two candidates could have the same amount of experience, talent, and knowledge. Was this merely used to conveniently filter out people to save time?
as most people are to some degree
Then it seems we as a society have a problem on our hands.
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Do you mean fixed, or fixated on, you ignorant buffoon?
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Typing is maybe #1 among the courses in highschool that I remember and that has had a concrete benefit to me.
Me too. Typing was the most useful thing I learned in high school.
That said, each of my kids has been taught keyboard in 3rd or 4th grade so it's not highschool material any more.
My son is in 4th grade, and they are learning to type in school. They dumped cursive to free up time in the schedule. I haven't used cursive handwriting since I learned to type, so it may be time to toss it on the ash heap of history.
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Every pupil will be required to take the Keyboarding course.
The computer labs will fill with students who hate being there.
Just tell them there's a way to hack the computers and you won't be able to keep them out.
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Who doesn't already know how to type these days? Every kid has a smartphone with texting.
Even children of the working poor?
What's left to teach in Keyboarding? How to type with fingers instead of thumbs?
Yes. Where the number keys and the punctuation keys are on big boy keyboards. How to exceed 60 wpm by touch typing. How to WASD around a model of the school building shooting paintballs at your intramural opponents.
Phone != smartphone (Score:2)
Every kid has a smartphone with texting.
Even children of the working poor?
Especially the poor. Phones are dirt cheap
Dumbphone plans are cheap. Smartphone plans aren't because carriers in the country that includes Chicago tend to force expensive data plans on smartphone customers [slashdot.org].
The only people today who don't have phones are willfully antisocial basement dwelling Slashdot posters.
Not all phones are created equal. Some are landlines. Some are flip phones with T9 instead of QWERTY.
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There's a big difference between typing on a keyboard and typing on a phone.
Another distraction from basic education (Score:5, Insightful)
If we can't get basics like reading figured out, what does it matter?
Try this: duckduckgo/google/bing/etc for "chicago public schools proficient".
Let's get reading figured out before we promote other things to core requirements.
Re:Another distraction from basic education (Score:5, Informative)
For what it's worth, more instruction in reading-as-its-own-thing can be counterproductive. What I've seen for reported research is that time spent on raw reading strategies ("find the main point", etc.) is productive up to about 10 hours and then doesn't give any more benefit. More productive is to get kids reading rich-content material in history and science and everything else, developing larger vocabularies, making more connections between more ideas and concepts. Neuroscientist Daniel Willingham phrases this, "Teaching content is teaching reading." Saying that we need to perfect reading in the abstract before broadening knowledge of the world is a waste of time and counterproductive -- like spinning tires in mud or dropping kids mentally into a sensory-deprivation tank.
http://www.danielwillingham.com/1/post/2012/03/school-time-knowledge-and-reading-comprehension.html [danielwillingham.com]
Critical thinking (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, this is great and all...
But wouldn't it be more useful to have a course that emphasizes critical thinking about all types of problems rather than focusing on one specific application of critical thinking? People usually seem to overlook that the important thing about working with computers is the ability to think critically about what you're doing, not the specifics of what you're doing.
Traditional science classes kind of broach the surface of critical thinking, but I suspect that it could be covered in much greater depth over a wide variety of problems, to much better effect.
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But wouldn't it be more useful to have a course that emphasizes critical thinking about all types of problems rather than focusing on one specific application of critical thinking?
Yes, but sometimes getting your hands dirty helps too.
I remember my first CS class in University. The professors were using a new text book that tried to teach programming without doing much programming. It was very difficult, and they dropped the book for the next semester. A year later I remembered that reading that book always put me to sleep, and I was having trouble sleeping so I picked the book up, and to my surprise it was awesome! I even thought about how it did a great job teaching programming with
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How generalized do you want to get? I mean you can get seriously non-specific about it then lose people as you meander through the thought experiments, or give them a base to start from.
On the other hand, education about how computers function might start to ablate this "black box" that computers are. That hands-off, "I can'tpossibly understand" attitude is what makes the average person so susceptible to malware.
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Traditional science classes kind of broach the surface of critical thinking
Science classes should involve critical thinking, but unfortunately most don't. Rather than teaching science they teach a set of facts, handed down by authority, that you must memorize.
I agree that a general logic and critical thinking class would be good but perhaps very hard to implement. A coding class gives a good framework for this, and a very hands-on framework, which I think is best. Once you learn this you can generalize.
Although I cringe at thinking about how the public school system might water-do
Re:Critical thinking (Score:4, Insightful)
I taught high school computer science for a while and I an a software developer.
I think almost anyone will agree that teaching how to think, understand and create algorithms, and critical thinking is the goal of computer science.
However, how do you express those thoughts? You could do it through the use of abstract mathematical symbols or perhaps pseudo-code.
Or you can express thoughts same thoughts via a programming language.
Better still, using a programming language lets you see the actual results of what you programmed, debug, find problems, view variable contents...
People who criticize the teaching of computer science always seem to hate on the choice of programming language. Look, I agree sometimes schools pick a practical or industry used programming language.
But this is not a problem. The problem resides in what you do with that language. If all you teach kids about programming is calling into libraries, then yeah, it is a problem. But if you teach them logic and control and variables, which most programming languages provide, then you're doing fine.
Even languages like Java which hide memory allocation are not that bad. This is high school computer science. If you can get them to understand variables and a for-loop, you're a miracle worker :)
They can learn the details of memory management in college/university or another advanced high-school class.
Teaching critical thinking early is a bad idea (Score:5, Insightful)
But wouldn't it be more useful to have a course that emphasizes critical thinking about all types of problems rather than focusing on one specific application of critical thinking?
Teaching critical thinking early is a bad idea.
There is a place and time for shoveling as much information into a child's head as it can possibly hold without exploding. This is when we teach multiplication tables, drill grammar into their thick skulls, teach them basic math up through algebra, spelling, penmanship, history, and so on.
As soon as you teach critical thinking skills, it's like setting the write protect bit: it enables them to make a value judgement on the validity of the information they are being given by the teachers (and other adults), and as soon as you have that, you begin to build distrust of information sources - even ones with good information to impart.
Generally some critical thinking skills form on their own; creative writing, physics, chemistry, debate, and other classes tend to foster their development, regardless of whether or not you are done shoveling the basic stuff into their heads. As soon as that bit is set, you might as well give up trying to program them, you've lost: they're teenagers.
Logic classes belong in the first quarter/semester of your first year of college, and not before.
Re:Teaching critical thinking early is a bad idea (Score:4, Insightful)
Exactly. Why would we ever want to 'teach' people to have critical thinking skills? Schooling is all about indoctrination and rote memorization, and actual thoughts would just get in the way of that.
Re:Teaching critical thinking early is a bad idea (Score:4, Interesting)
Exactly. Why would we ever want to 'teach' people to have critical thinking skills? Schooling is all about indoctrination and rote memorization, and actual thoughts would just get in the way of that.
I think you missed the part where I said that some critical thinking skills are formed on their own; and people should definitely have critical thinking skills; I've been persuaded by another poster that it should be a mandatory grade 12 (High School Senior) course, rather than waiting for the first year of college.
It's counter productive to impair the ability to teach children rote information by teaching them to doubt the source before attempting to teach them the rote information. For non-rote information classes, that's the likely places that self-derived critical thinking skills will develop on their own.
Also see my other post about certain religious sects - I give the example of Amish/Mennonite communities) where doubting your teacher in school becomes the same as doubting your parents and doubting your religious authority. Instilling a high probability of acting on such doubts, which is an opportunity given at 14-16 years of age in those communities, is effectively cultural genocide.
While you may be saying "Good! I'm a rational humanist, and they should be too! I want everyone to be like me!", those cultures embody skill sets that we, as a society, may decide we need some day, in the same way that some - myself included - have argued that kids should be taught to do math without calculators because one EMP, and they won't be able to add anything on their own past "ten fingers" any more.
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You're teaching them to use their brains.
But then again, that's something you can only facilitate for the elite few who actually have worthwhile brains.
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Everyone has a brain suitable for critical thinking
Everyone (With very few exceptions...) has a brain that's at least capable of it to some extent, but whether or not they're actually intelligent is another matter.
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I feel that the sooner you teach children to THINK, the smarter they will be as adults-- and, the more profound and varied their educational underpinning at that time, the more empowered their minds will be.
That much I agree with. I think many people would be smarter, though not necessarily what I'd call truly intelligent. I do not deny that having an educational system that isn't complete garbage would help most people.
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You're not teaching them to doubt a source. You're teaching them to use their brains. If you're teaching by rote, chances are (though not always), you're not teaching much of anything. Multiplication tables are garbage, for instance; math is not about being able to calculate random garbage in your head quickly, but even if it were, people will naturally memorize things they see often.
"Critical thinking is a way of deciding whether a claim is true, partially true, or false. Critical thinking is a process that leads to skills that can be learned, mastered and used. Critical thinking is a tool by which one can come about reasoned conclusions based on a reasoned process. This process incorporates passion and creativity, but guides it with discipline, practicality and common sense."
The problem with "teaching critical thinking", then, is that you teach them to decide validity for themselves,
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The idea that we need to suppress people's critical thinking skills early on because people might question authority figures is something I find positively absurd. People are going to question things either way, and again, if you're teaching by rote, chances are, you screwed up.
or example, that "being able to calculate random garbage in your head quickly" is *very* important to knowing whether you have enough money in your pocket to buy the things you have in your shopping basket when you get to the checkout
Nonsense. That has nothing to do with multiplication tables or anything of the sort. I think this is part of the reason math 'education' in this country is so abysmal [uottawa.ca]; people treat it as nothing more than a tool they can use to compl
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So yeah, I'm completely opposed to the idea that we should hold off on encouraging critical thinking because people might actually think about things and question things, if that wasn't already apparent. If that means people will challenge some of this rote memorization education, then so be it; I'm fine with that.
Re:Teaching critical thinking early is a bad idea (Score:5, Insightful)
Woah, kids don't become teenagers because you've taught them critical thinking. You're seriously confusing correlation and causation here. Kids hit the "teenager" stage of mental development whether you want it or not, as a natural part of the progression in brain development. The right time to teach critical thinking is whenever kids are ready for it (which will vary from child to child, sometimes by quite a lot).
For young children still in the "sponge up, memorize, and repeat information from the environment with no higher analysis" developmental phase, a repetitive, memorization of random facts and methods approach is appropriate. However, introducing the "higher thinking" approach as soon as kids are able to handle it is highly beneficial --- when you can understand and synthesize material, in addition to just remembering something you've seen before, you'll do far better at every subject. Stunting critical skills by beating rote conformity into teenagers (who have hit brain development stages incompatible with this) may produce quiet, well-behaved, and dull idiots, but that shouldn't be the goal of education. Rather, guiding the inevitable development of critical thinking through the wacky teenage years to take advantage of good information along with rebelling against bad is how to go about education.
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I can't use myself as a "typical" example, because I'm already quite a few standard deviations out on much else --- however, I can certainly say that there was a reasonably large population of high-school aged students perfectly capable of handling and thriving on critical-thinking-engaged work; the idea of holding this off until "first tear of college" is quite extreme. But, even earlier in schooling, there's often a clear difference between students who critically understand material (hence are able to fl
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Regardless of the specific suddenness, there's still the underlying notion of whether teenage brain development (towards a "questioning authority" independent critical thinking approach) is something taught, or something innate in brain development. The specific form that "teenage rebellion" takes is certainly a cultural artifact (i.e. is taught) --- teenagers will adopt a particular language, style of dress, musical taste, and mode of behavior by mimicking influences around them (ironically, often "rebell
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Agreed; experiment is the objective means to determine this.
However, the theory of mind experiment has been conducted many times, and presents a good landmark to use for a reasonable lower bound for such an experiment.
Prior to this, children are unable to reach such an abstraction, and thus will be confused by subject matter that is DESIGNED to cause confusion, and will lack any means of dealing with it.
For an upper bound, I would point to the medical data concerning when a person is statistically likely to have completed the mylenation process, and the body of data concerning the strong correllation between dendrite formation and migration and the curve that corresponds to mylenation. (Note, they are inversely proportional for the most part.)
This suggests that the ideal conditions are in very early childhood, counter to GGP's assertions.
There is an ideal time to teach children that has a real biological basis, yes.
There are also kids *graduating* high school in the U.S. who are lacking in basic skills such as the ability to communicate effectively, or even read above a 3rd grade level.
If we don't take advantage of the window between when they apply critical thinking skills to arrive at such conclusions as "Why learn this crap? I'm never going to use it!" and the earlier point at which they still almost unquestionably integrate information
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I'm sorry anon, but I don't see any justification as to why this should be an upper bound. I was not referring to neurological maturation, but psychological. They're not the same, nor do they coincide; though the firs
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This is an insightful post. I'm persuaded that it's possible to try to teach this too early, before some foundational knowledge has been instilled. But I'm not sure that it's necessary to delay until the first term of a college, especially since everyone would benefit, not just those that end up going to college. I would support a mandatory course in senior high school year, with some of the principles being touched upon in science classes before that.
That's a reasonable point. People are mandatorily required to attend primary education through grade 12 in the U.S. (with the exception of some "grade 8 then done" Amish/Mennonite communities), and teaching it before they go out into the world is a good idea. It may actually be counter-productive to the continued existence of those communities, so the stop should not be adjusted downward in those instances - throwing doubt about informations sources right before they go on Rumspringa would likely steal ma
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I'm not sure this is "stealing" them from their culture. It's equipping them with the ability to make a more rational choice, and I don't think you can really argue against this, regardless of any consideration for the overall effect integrated over population statistics.
I can: it equips them to make a rational choice based on *the information available to them at the time of the choice*. Such a choice based on a lack of critical pieces of information necessary to their understanding of the consequences of the decision is only *situationally rational*, and perhaps not long term rational or correct.
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Your premise seems to be that once a kid learns critical thinking, they will suddenly start making value judgments. I hate to tell you this but every kid makes value judgments about their classes regardless of having any formal training in critical thinking. I passionately HATED history as a kid. I thought learning about the past was a complete waste of my time and it was made even worse by all the rote memorization. It was only after that I learned critical thinking that I understood the value of histo
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Students definitely should doubt their teachers ---- who often make errors, and doing so should inspire more learning. If it gets out of hand, they can always be given a detention [picstache.com] for it.
There is a place and time for shoveling as much information into a child's head as it can possibly hold without exploding. This is when we teach multiplication tables, drill grammar into their thick skulls, teach them basic math up through algebra, spelling, penmanship, history, and so on.
These are unnecessary. Strong
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It's never truly as obvious until you have this conversation:
1: "They should pay us more."
2: "If so, this [plant|office|shop] will close"
1: "But we're worth more than [X/hr.]"
2: "So quit"
1: "Can't, this is the best job around"
2: "Then be happy you have it"
1: "Just greedy CEO corporate whores screwing us every chance they get"
2: "Then start your own business"
1: "I can't quit, I need the money"
The moment disillusionment kicks in, it is the cause of all that is wrong. The only reason business does anything is
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While we are on the subject - a girl kills your sister and steals her shoes, and a wizard sends the same girl to kill you. Her comrades kill or stop everything you send to stop them. Who is the real evil here?
Probably me, because I would immediately go scorched earth before your first "and" (I happen to believe in the concept of "Total War", and probably get along well with William Tecumseh Sherman). Realize, however, that your argument started with what I'd call an intolerable provocation to war.
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"Critical thinking" is this mantra that has come to signify almost nothing. A peculiar CS-person fugue seems to be "education is never abstracted enough to satisfy me". People cannot think in the abstract without first thinking about something concrete. Lots of specific knowledge is what allows connections to be made.
"Knowledge comes into play mainly because if we want our students to learn how to think critically, they must have something to think about." [Daniel T. Willingham, American Educator [aft.org]]
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"Critical thinking" is this mantra that has come to signify almost nothing.
If you ask someone advocating "critical thinking" what it actually means, you mostly get mumbling. If you ask people to give an example of what a "critical thinking" classroom lesson would entail, none of them will agree with the others. I heard one advocate insist that "critical thinking" meant teaching the scientific method, although the archetype of "critical thinking" is the Socratic method, which is pretty much the exact opposite of the scientific method.
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Similar to this class, if they talk about abstract things like class hierarchies or introspection, everyone will be bored. But if they talk about making games (or whatever teenagers are interested in) then some people
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In some schools, like in Japan, the teachers first present a problem to students before teaching them the required accepted method for solving it. For instance: Find the area of a triangle. The students break into groups and work on solving the problem. Many times the students re-invent the same equations our greatest ancient minds came up with, sometimes they come up with correct but imprecise or inefficient methods. Then the students are given the accepted knowledge with which to solve the other class
Sure (Score:2)
Make it core for Trig students (Score:5, Insightful)
Forcing CS down on everyone's throat would be like forcing calculus. Some can take it and some can't.
I'd guess that about half the population (IQ below 100) will never get programming no matter how hard you try to teach them.
But if a kid can pass algebra and geometry, they can probably learn some BASIC.
The ones that can't hack algebra, teach them Excel or data entry so the school board can be proud of leading the high tech education future or something along those lines.
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I'd guess that about half the population (IQ below 100) will never get programming no matter how hard you try to teach them.
That depends on what you mean by "get programming." If you're merely talking about making any sort of program and the quality of the code doesn't matter at all, then I disagree. If you're talking about being competent, then I think far less than half could "get programming." IQ also has nothing to do with it.
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if a kid can pass algebra and geometry, they can probably learn some BASIC.
"It is practically impossible to teach good programming to students that have had a prior exposure to BASIC: as potential programmers they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration." - Edsger W. Dijkstra
Not that I actually agree with Dijkstra on this. I started out on BASIC and became a good programmer despite it (emphasis on "despite") as did many other kids in my generation. But there are certainly better languages to start with. In 1980 people actually tried to write real programs in BASIC and i
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Computer programming is no harder than following recipe instructions or assenbling legos or making a sandwich.
I repeat --- computer programming is no harder than making a sandwich.
Being a good computer programmer or a great one is a different story, but idea that exposing average people to very simple computer programming is bad because "they won't get it" is preposterous!
Computer programming is FAR EASIER than either geometry or calculus --- one example would be Visual Basic 6 or hello w
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I'd guess that about half the population (IQ below 100) will never get programming no matter how hard you try to teach them.
It all depends on how you teach them. Sure, if you show them pages and pages of code they'll be bored, but sit an 8 year old down with a turtle and LOGO and in a few hours he'll be doing all kind of things. "FORWARD 100 RIGHT 90 FORWARD 100." It just makes sense. By the end of the semester they'll have concepts like variables and loops down, which is really all you need for BASIC programming. No Algebra or Geometry necessary.
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The problem is that if you teach a kid BASIC instead of mathematics, they'll be better than the other kids at algebra.
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This is one class we're talking about here. Not a course of maths of which trig is one. Not a course of English of which poetry is one. This is a single course in which kids can effectively try programming.
In every Code.org thread, people say you can't just make kids like programming, they just need the chance to learn. Given exposure, they can decide if they like it or not.
This is the opposite of the "make everyone a coder" mantra. I took maths, I'm not a mathematician. Out of every course in school,
PC-free households (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:PC-free households (Score:4, Interesting)
Overages (Score:2)
One of the benefits of a CS class is the flipped model that allows most, if not all, of the work to be completed in class.
Watching video lessons at home would fix the "all we have is an iPad/Xbox" problems so long as the video lessons are compatible with Safari for iOS and IE for Xbox 360. But it still leaves the problem of needing to buy a computer or device in the first place and subscribe to wired broadband at home, as watching too many videos on a smartphone over 3G/4G will cause the parent to have to pay the carrier when the student incurs a data overage.
Re:PC-free households (Score:4, Insightful)
It's worse than that. When I was a kid I was interested in programming before I ever had access to computers at school that could support it. I did Visual Basic and Delphi at home on the family PC, and also on the 386 it replaced that I had commandeered. It was at least 3 years before I was in a position to buy my own.
I feel sorry for the coming generation of kids who will know nothing but locked down, hostile devices that will have to convince their parents that they need a real computer, particularly if their parents are computer averse.
They won't (Score:2)
Wasted potential? (Score:2)
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After-school bus problem (Score:3)
Probably use a computer at school
With the sorry state of student transit in some cities, it might be hard for a student who stays after school to complete his assignments to get home from school. Is Chicago any better?
or a library.
Provided that the other students haven't already reserved all the PCs at the library.
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And that you can do anything on the PCs anyway. A lot lock them down, and even fewer probably come with compilers or scripting environments.
Logic, not computers (Score:3, Insightful)
Computer science is a poor substitute for teaching logical argument and mathematical logic. But if they're going to teach computer science, I hope that doesn't mean "how to use Excel."
Excel macros (Score:2)
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Computer science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes. ~ paraphrased from the great Edsger W. Dijkstra
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These institutions are garbage and should be labeled as such.
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I'd be happy if everyone knew how to use Excel.
Just understanding that you can automate a ton of pointless crap by using Excel formulas would remove so much trivially stupid data entry work out there.
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The HS class for using Excell and Word is called, "Vocational Computer Applications" where I come from. In the 1990's Computer Math was the class you took for BASIC, Pascal, C, etc. Nowadays I think the curriculum is JavaScript, Python, C. In 100 years it'll probably be Neuron.Net, BizLang, and C.
I've invented other languages with the aim to be as close to the metal as possible on modern Von Neumann architectures -- It was basically C that looked different; C is a product of its environment. Only differ
I'm confused. (Score:2)
You'd think that by 2014 this would be a very obvious requirement for any student to take. Certainly far more useful than chemistry and certainly way sooner than physics.
At the same time, I'm stunned that anyone would setup a situation where students are forced to have this as a requirement. There are many jobs/lifestyles that don't require any skills of this kind, and in which these sorts of skills are actually detrimental to those industries.
Basically, this looks a lot like 1980's algebra. Really incre
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Basically, once again, the education system is a good 20 years behind the curve. Not surprising at all. It likes to pump out blue-collar workers. It always has.
Taught by whom? (Score:3)
Where exactly is CPS going to find people who are passionate and knowledgeable about CS who also want to teach in a public district in Illinois? Stipends and training are nice but I don't feel like forcing students to take a CS course, taught by a teacher who may have no real experience in CS, is going to encourage anyone already not determined to go to university for CS to change their mind. It may actually dissuade potential CS majors.
Re:Taught by whom? (Score:4, Interesting)
CPS pays an average of just under $75K to teachers, which is more than most private schools do. Along with the extra job security and (promised if not delivered) pensions, that makes the teaching positions attractive to quite a few people. The teachers I know also feel good about dedicating their professional lives to students in CPS, who are generally in need of every bit of help they can get.
If I had made a bundle in the dot com bubble or something, I could see myself teaching CS in CPS. Or at least trying -- I teach grad school and don't know if I have the personality for younger students.
Guangdong Electric Appliance Research Institute (Score:2)
Oh the humanity (Score:3)
Then I could see the technology becoming either a buzzword bingo or really dated. So it would be intro to perl, visual basic, and power builder. Or an intro to node.js, ruby, and haskell.
But the second worst upon worst would be that companies would "freely" donate to the school system so that the kids would become little MSDN/Oracle/Salesforce drones.
The worst of worst would be that they would suck all the fun out of it; Every single drop. So instead of teaching them something relevant such as making a video game, an Arduino robot, or creating a tool for interacting with pintrest/twiter/vine etc. They would have them doing the age old command line enter your age and find out how old you are in dog years crap.
I have watched my nephews making crap in Unity3D and they are forcing themselves to learn programming. Much is copy and paste code then hammer it until it works. This is not going to create a firm foundation but if after this they took a rapid introduction to programming course that showed them how to do things correctly they would realize that many of their bad habits had a cure. But they wouldn't have to learn the underlying philosophy that makes you really grok programming which is something that most intro courses completely fail at. I have talked to many people who have just passed a university programming course and they usually don't know the difference between a float and an int. (Usually Java based courses so they should know).
I'm not saying that CS in highschool is a bad idea but that CS is for a certain type of person. You either love it or it is purely a chore. It seems that the goal is to expose tonnes of people to CS and hope that a few end up joining our little cult. So my suggestion is to create for credit computer/engineering clubs. The idea would be to have the tools and a mentor who would encourage independent study and small group projects. This way someone who has been doing Arduino assembly since grade 8 would be able to attempt something fantastic while someone else who had failed to compile Hello World and still loved it would also have a place that welcomed them. Trying to have a standard curriculum is just going to annoy everybody and only result in wasted time and tears; and maybe even a worse outcome as the person who wants to make an app is just going to get pissed off writing the usual command line garbage. Personally I would much rather make a crappy buggy app than a perfect command line thing on my first go.
Re: (Score:2)
CS is for a certain type of person, but most of
All kids? (Score:2)
I see someday a war of minds, maybe very near in the future. And interestingly enough, I think the farmers will win.
Re: (Score:2)
I see someday a war of minds, maybe very near in the future. And interestingly enough, I think the farmers will win.
"The farmers" are already beholden to a massive corporate infrastructure. There is very little agriculture done by farmers with the skills and tools to not be deeply dependent on the fertilizer, pesticide, herbicide, fossil fuel, and seed megacorporations' systems (which reap the profits while farmers bear the financial risk and poor workers do the brutal labor of farming). So, what "farmers" do you expect to win a war of minds against the peons enmeshed in the corporate infrastructure of high-tech? It's co
80s/90s perspective (Score:2)
We had some computers in high school. We had many of them in college.
In both settings, the lecture was actually very important. The lectures were about algorithms. Because these were elective programs (or perhaps met an elective requirement for an engineering degree) most of the students did well. Even the ones who struggled with it were at least highly motivated. Even people like myself who had done a lot of coding outside the classroom struggled with the material at times, so it was very challenging
Let me guess... (Score:2)
In the new `computer science' class, they will not be covering what a computer is, how it works, etc. but, rather, MS Office. Right?
Comment removed (Score:3)