States Are Calling For More K-12 CS Classes. Now They Need the Teachers. (edweek.org) 114
Long-time Slashdot reader theodp writes: "42 states to go!" exclaimed Code.org to its 1+ million Twitter followers as it celebrated victorious efforts to pass legislation making North Carolina the 8th state to pass a high school computer science graduation requirement, bringing the tech-backed nonprofit a step closer to its goal of making CS a requirement for a HS diploma in all 50 states. But as states make good on pledges made to tech CEOs to make their schoolchildren CS savvy, Education Week cautions that K-12 CS has a big certified teacher shortage problem.
From the article: When trying to ensure all students get access to the knowledge they need for college and careers, sometimes policy can get ahead of teacher capacity. Computer science is a case in point. As of 2022, every state in the nation has passed at least one law or policy intended to promote K-12 computer science education, and 53 percent of high schools offered basic computer science courses that year, according to the nonprofit advocacy group Code.org."
"'There's big money behind making [course offerings] go up higher and faster,' thanks to federal and state grants as well as private foundations, said Paul Bruno, an assistant professor of education policy, organization, and leadership at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. "But then that raises the question, well, who are we getting to teach these courses...?"
Bruno's work in states such as California and North Carolina suggests that few of those new computer science classes are staffed with teachers who are certified in that subject."
From the article: When trying to ensure all students get access to the knowledge they need for college and careers, sometimes policy can get ahead of teacher capacity. Computer science is a case in point. As of 2022, every state in the nation has passed at least one law or policy intended to promote K-12 computer science education, and 53 percent of high schools offered basic computer science courses that year, according to the nonprofit advocacy group Code.org."
"'There's big money behind making [course offerings] go up higher and faster,' thanks to federal and state grants as well as private foundations, said Paul Bruno, an assistant professor of education policy, organization, and leadership at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. "But then that raises the question, well, who are we getting to teach these courses...?"
Bruno's work in states such as California and North Carolina suggests that few of those new computer science classes are staffed with teachers who are certified in that subject."
Let's get this out of the way (Score:1, Flamebait)
No one wants to work anymore!
https://theamericangenius.com/... [theamericangenius.com]
Re: (Score:1, Interesting)
Few people get to be paid for something they actually want to do in life. Most work to get paid so they can survive. Teaching has become a job just like any other, and it shows.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I wasn’t aware the bank would take the warm fuzzy feeling of teaching as a mortgage payment.
Re: (Score:2)
I wasn't aware the bank would take the warm fuzzy feeling of teaching as a mortgage payment.
Maybe a Credit Union? :-)
Re: Let's get this out of the way (Score:4, Informative)
It isn't important to capitalism. Educating children and having a more productive workforce is not something and ibdivudal can exploit for their own profit. So capitalism as a system fails to invest into something that offers no direct return. Even if we all agree that it is important and benefits the economy indirectly.
Re: (Score:3)
Yes, education much like healthcare are things that markets doesn't really do a good job of solving for despite the fact that that the more people have access to them the more those economic conditions and all the other markets improve for everyone.
Capitalism absolutely benefits from and functionally requires an educated and healthy labor force but it doesn't actually contain the tools to provide those things in an efficient manner. There's a good reason every founding father despite their other disagreeme
Re: (Score:3)
I struggle to convince some of my libertarian friends that there is a such thing as the public good. They think I'm trying to rob them. I guess I am because I don't want children to grow up to be illiterate unemployable adults that have nothing better to do than hang out in my neighborhood.
P.S. sorry for the typos in my previous post. the mobile version was slowing down and it was worse than typing on a 300 baud modem. Not sure if I should blame Android or /. or myself for even trying.
Re: (Score:3)
Keep probing a libertarian long enough about how their society would work and almost all of the time they end up re-inventing the concept of "government". I know this because I used to be one.
Re: (Score:3)
Capitalism absolutely benefits from and functionally requires an educated and healthy labor force but it doesn't actually contain the tools to provide those things in an efficient manner.
That's not true. Capitalism can provide loans to students to pay for a high quality education and it would be extremely efficient. However, most people wouldn't want that efficiency.
For example, if I were to invest $1 million into educating students from elementary school till university graduation, I would be able to afford to do so for just 6 students using the current education system. So the first order of business is a cheaper way of educating. For example, I would make video lectures for most of the m
Re: (Score:2)
This would enable investment to maybe the top 70% of students, but still leave the rest 30% with nothing. They would be confined to a life of menial labor such as truck driving, janitorial services, or fruit picking, unless they somehow save enough to pursue education on their own. But again, this is good under capitalism.
And there's my point. If one believes as I do, and I think most people would believe, that education and healthcare should not have a monetary barrier behind them. If a kid graduating high school has got the grades and wants to go to college the wealth of his family should not be consideration for them getting that education. No human should have to think about the choice between getting a biopsy or dinner.
What capitalism calls "efficiency" in this case is accepted human misery. That's a choice we make
Re: (Score:2)
It isn't important to capitalism. Educating children and having a more productive workforce is not something and ibdivudal can exploit for their own profit. So capitalism as a system fails to invest into something that offers no direct return. Even if we all agree that it is important and benefits the economy indirectly.
Education is important to freedom. Capitalism will happily accept legions of poorly educated worker drones, just look at any number of developing countries where the crap you're using is made.
The problem is, you get loads of people who didn't pay attention in school drooling out nonsense like "skool never told me how to do my taxes"... No shit sherlock, school isn't meant to teach you things by rote memorisation (this is why schooling in developing nations tends to be sub par), schooling is meant to give
Re: (Score:3)
Perhaps if teaching is so important then it should be compensated differently?
Pay them the babysitter rate [cafemom.com].
Re: (Score:2)
Perhaps if teaching is so important then it should be compensated differently?
Teachers should be paid enough so that schools can attract the quality and quantity of teachers they need.
The current level of teacher salaries appears to be sufficient for that.
Most have my kids' teachers have been very good. The few bad teachers were there because of institutional dysfunction, not because of low pay.
Re: (Score:1)
When over 50% of US kids can't fucking read at grade level, are constantly told that they can be anything they want, and that reality is mutable, is it any surprise they don't feel like they need to work?
Fad (Score:5, Insightful)
What k-12 needs is competent math instruction, not CS. Furthermore, the morons who want CS don't know what CS is; what they actually want is "how to use this software" or "write some html."
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Fad (Score:4, Insightful)
What k-12 needs is competent math instruction, not CS. Furthermore, the morons who want CS don't know what CS is; what they actually want is "how to use this software" or "write some html."
Completely disagree. What K-12 needs is data literacy. You need facility with data to be a part of our current society. You need to be able to look at data, download it, understand how to manipulate it. You need this to do high school projects. You need this to make sense of news stories (because journalists too often miss it). You need it to understand so many of the current events in society today.
Maths is only a part of data-literacy. For better or worse, CS courses cover more data literacy than other courses.
When the kids learn how to fire up Excel or Google Sheets and put in cells and equations? That's probably the best data-literacy platform today. When they learn how to construct Google Slides or Powerpoint presentations and put graphs in? Again, data literacy.
Re: (Score:2)
You mean how articles claiming something is unusual ought to give enough statistics to deduce the mean and standard deviation, and all readers should by habit doublecheck that the claim is over three standard deviations from the mean?
Re: Fad (Score:2)
Very very hard to be data literate if you are innumerate.
Impossible to enter a formula into an excel cell if you have no clue what an equation is.
Re: (Score:2)
Very very hard to be data literate if you are innumerate.
Impossible to enter a formula into an excel cell if you have no clue what an equation is.
There's a big problem with the idea. Having dealt with attempts to get young ladies into STEM Fields, especially things like programming, it always fails. They aren't interested. Programming is not something that you sit down one day and think, I want to be either a CEO, or a programmer.
Why do I bring up women? Because there are not that many men in K-12 teaching any more. And very few want to be in a field where they are considered as pedophiles. Most men left in K-12 are Football or Basketball coaches.
Re: Fad (Score:2)
20 years ago is when I finished high school. It was almost exclusively female teachers in k-8, except for a few men, not particularly concentrated in any subject, and in high school it may not have been at parity but it wasn't obviously skewed either.
My female physics teacher spun tall tales about having gotten out of a foreign language credit in grad school on the technicality that FORTRAN wasn't English, and it was a language....
Maybe it's changed. Or maybe your kid went to an outlier school. Or maybe I d
Re: (Score:2)
20 years ago is when I finished high school. It was almost exclusively female teachers in k-8, except for a few men, not particularly concentrated in any subject, and in high school it may not have been at parity but it wasn't obviously skewed either.
My female physics teacher spun tall tales about having gotten out of a foreign language credit in grad school on the technicality that FORTRAN wasn't English, and it was a language....
Maybe it's changed. Or maybe your kid went to an outlier school. Or maybe I did.
It is a matter of generalities for certain. I probably should have noted that in my post. But since we're in the generality phase, might as well start off with this. There is no difference in the intellectual capacity of male and female. All differences there are individual based.
Now, there are really excellent female programmers. Say for instance Margaret Hamilton of MIT and Apollo project fame.
But she is a good programmer because she is a good programmer, not because she is a woman.
I have worked with
Re: Fad (Score:2)
I'd add that in the average large school district, the pay one would command for teaching stem is dwarfed by the pay one would command anywhere else practicing stem.
A direct consequence of this is that the rare competent practitioner who chooses to teach at the k-12 level would almost certainly be independently wealthy already, and doing it for the pleasure of teaching.
Two examples that come to mind is an art teacher in my old high school. She taught pottery...after making what I infer were ungodly sums of
Re: (Score:2)
Heh - if you want to count computer languages, I can speak 8 fluently and 3 more in pidgin. 8-) How's that for well rounded?
Re: (Score:2)
What K-12 needs is data literacy.
Indeed. But that is like trying to train a kindergartner in the nuances of grammar when they haven't even learned to spell yet. It is pointless noise. There are other foundational subjects to learn first, such a logic and algebra. Schools do not even try to teach logic and algebra 1 was able to be avoided by most students (which they did).
Re: (Score:2)
You'll teach kids Power Point over my dead body! ;) Let that one tech die. :)
Re: (Score:1)
Learning how to use a word processor, including how to use and update styles which few people understand, is a useful life skill. Also spreadsheets.
And there's value in teaching something like Scratch (or LOGO when I was young) to find the kids who have an aptitude for programming. (Not all kids have it, and it isn't easily taught.)
Re: Fad (Score:2)
No disagreement. The point of contention is whether it is a wise use of limited resources to do that to everyone as opposed to doing something more universally useful for everyone.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
They can get the tech bro billionaires on their side to buy off some senators maybe they'll get some extra funding, or at least that's probably the devil's bargain they're considering
Re: (Score:2)
So all around badly planned and thought out? (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, no surprise there. CS is a _specialist_ skill. It has no place in regular school education.
Re: (Score:2)
Sort of disagree. And "introduction to programming" would be a worthwhile course. It should probably be around 20-40 hours of class time and perhaps an equal amount of computer lab. Anything more than that should be for specialists.
There should also be "introduction to statistics" and a few other such courses."Introduction to Rhetoric" would probably be the most valuable of the set. (That one teaches you to make and attempt to convince people with an argument you know to be false.)
Re: (Score:2)
Nope. May as well teach them surgical stitching, paving a road or how to use a lathe for 20-40h. All just a waste of time. Even those that will later write software will _not_ get to the stage where they actually understand what they are doing and then be able to generalize in this short a time. Also what is wring with all the coding "bootcamps": After these, you still have no clue what you are doing, you just learned some rituals and templates.
I do agree on the rhetoric. We had it as part of "Ethics", the
Re: (Score:2)
If you think coding bootcamps are bad, you haven't seen security ones.
Re: (Score:2)
If you think coding bootcamps are bad, you haven't seen security ones.
I have absolutely no doubt you are correct. Whenever some non-regulated skill is in high demand, there are always some assholes that claim to be teaching it to an useful level for money, but in actual reality are only ripping off people. Also refer to "Trump academy" for an example in a different field.
Re: (Score:2)
Security is about not only applying what you know but developing new methods of approaching a problem. Rote learning is worse than useless since if it could be rote learned, what you are supposed to do would be part of the normal development process and you'd be useless.
Which you are after such a bootcamp. Please, people, don't waste your money on that snake oil!
Re: (Score:2)
Exactly. All you can do after such a fake education is more damage.
Re: (Score:2)
Not even that. All they can hope for is to get hired by a company that knows even less about security than they do, screw up and get fired as soon as (not if, not even when) the next security breach happens.
If they're lucky, they'll have had enough time between getting hired and that security breach to at least recover the cost for that worthless bootcamp.
Re: (Score:2)
You've got the wrong idea of what the "Into to ..." classes are intended to be. Their purpose is to give you a rough outline of what's involved, not to let you do the work. I guess "20 to 40 hours" is an overestimate of what should be involved. say an hour a day for 3 to 4 weeks. Just enough to let you know what's involved in the process (including how picky computer programs are about details). Those who want to carry it further would need to take a different class.
Re: (Score:2)
You kids and your newfangled, complicated words, "introduction to programming". Back in my days, we called that "mathematics and logic".
Re: (Score:2)
Well, you could do the same thing with a class on symbolic logic, but a compiler will let you know quickly if you made a (certain class of) mistake. Quick feedback is useful.
Re: (Score:2)
Yes and no.
Back when computing time was expensive and people were (comparably) cheap, programmers could program. Because making a trivial mistake in a program could mean losing a couple hours because that's how long it took to get your compiled program back from the big box. So programmers took care of finding those little "trivial" mistakes in their code and got good at it. There's code out there running on mainframes that was compiled 50 years ago and there are no errors in it. Like, none. Not even in edg
Many schools struggle with the 3 R's (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Well, you have to admit, there is not a single R in CS, so they think they could probably pull this one off at least.
Re: (Score:2)
Well, you have to admit, there is not a single R in CS, so they think they could probably pull this one off at least.
Except at the end of "Computer". There's also R [wikipedia.org] ...
Re: Many schools struggle with the 3 R's (Score:2)
When half of high school students make it through a probability and statistics course, then we can talk about teaching them to code. Even basic tools for understanding data are beyond the reach of most graduates. Without some fundamentals there is no point in screwing around with teaching the grammar of whatever is the current hot new language.
Get the students some math first. Vectors. Big Sigma, statistics, really any and all of that stuff.
Too bad this effort doesn't go (Score:5, Insightful)
to teaching logic and critical thinking. The kids would be better served.
Re:Too bad this effort doesn't go (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah I gotta agree, K-8 need more of knowledge in pseudo-code type knowledge rather than actually programming. Loops, if statements, logic gates, probably an earlier introduction to basic algebraic concepts, really just training in the high level concepts of how machines and computers operate. Also the basic process of troubleshooting, breaking a problem down into smaller pieces and visualizing how to get to root causes.
I think if kids that age want to start actually programming the tools should be there to let them, allow those grades to have more elective classes to figure out which things they actually enjoy doing. At that age I would class programming the same as art or music, some kids are going to have a natural inclination towards it and some kids will figure out it's not for them. If they can figure those things out earlier the chances are they'll make better decisions in 8-12 and college.
Re: (Score:2)
Have you attended your local school board meetings?
Re: (Score:2)
It's also pretty interesting that the decision makers seem to have no understanding of what compter science or the basics/base of computer science is, which is simple: math, that domain the first computer scientists came from.
Perhaps we need to educate people on that fact.
Re: (Score:2)
Programming came from one small subset of math. It's an important part, but it's only part. Accurate reasoning is a better thing to teach, but it's much harder to evaluate.
Re: (Score:2)
Logic and critical thinking? Are you nuts? Do you want to have riots in the streets?
Do you have a faint idea what would be going on in this country if more people had the mental capacity of realizing what is going on in this country?
Critical reasoning is part of the curriculum (Score:2)
Critical reasoning is part of Common Core State Standards for Mathematics [ccsso.org] and therefore part of North Carolina curriculum.
STANDARDS FOR MATHEMATICAL PRACTICE
The Standards for Mathematical Practice describe varieties of expertise that mathematics educators at all levels should seek to develop in their students. These practices rest on important “processes and proficiencies” with longstanding importance in mathematics education. The first of these are the NCTM process standards of problem solving, reasoning and proof, communication, representation, and connections. The second are the strands of mathematical proficiency specified in the National Research Council’s report Adding It Up: adaptive reasoning, strategic competence, conceptual understanding (comprehension of mathematical concepts, operations and relations), procedural fluency (skill in carrying out procedures flexibly, accurately, efficiently and appropriately), and productive disposition (habitual inclination to see mathematics as sensible, useful, and worthwhile, coupled with a belief in diligence and one’s own efficacy).
...
3 Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others.
Mathematically proficient students understand and use stated assumptions, definitions, and previously established results in constructing arguments. They make conjectures and build a logical progression of statements to explore the truth of their conjectures. They are able to analyze situations by breaking them into cases, and can recognize and use counterexamples. They justify their conclusions, communicate them to others, and respond to the arguments of others. They reason inductively about data, making plausible arguments that take into account the context from which the data arose. Mathematically proficient students are also able to compare the effectiveness of two plausible arguments, distinguish correct logic or reasoning from that which is flawed, and—if there is a flaw in an argument—explain what it is. Elementary students can construct arguments using concrete referents such as objects, drawings, diagrams, and actions. Such arguments can make sense and be correct, even though they are not generalized or made formal until later grades. Later, students learn to determine domains to which an argument applies. Students at all grades can listen or read the arguments of others, decide whether they make sense, and ask useful questions to clarify or improve the arguments.
Re: (Score:2)
to teaching logic and critical thinking. The kids would be better served.
Ya, but then there'd be fewer Republicans -- oh, wait ... :-)
Re: (Score:1)
Yeah, but then they might become "liberals" (as if the conservatives even know what the word means in historical context say a few hundred years ago)
Re: Too bad this effort doesn't go (Score:2)
I assume conservatives are against having a liberal democracy and want to switch to a theocratic republic.
Re: (Score:2)
to teaching logic and critical thinking. The kids would be better served.
Very true. I took a CS course in high school, years ago before CS was a "thing." 80% of the time was spent understanding how to solve a problem and the logic behind it, 5% coding and 15% tightening up the code to be as efficient as possible. Learning to code is a a short-term skill as languages change; learning how to solve problems cane applied to any code.
The challenge is, if a teacher can do and teach that effectively they can make a lot more money doing that than as a K-12 teacher; without the headac
Re:Too bad this effort doesn't go (Score:4, Insightful)
1) Who writes these goals?
2) How are they distributed to the teachers? Snail mail or text messages?
3) How do the these goals benefit the originators?
Re: Too bad this effort doesn't go (Score:2)
The faculty meets in the gymnasium at midnight dressed in hooded blue robes. They sit around a shortwave receiver waiting for the secret messages from Obama and Xi to direct the indoctrination effort.
My attempt at a joke is more believable than what some of the followers of Qanon believe. Sad state of affairs for the human race.
Free money with programs like this (Score:2)
But the current public school systems and teachers' unions can't teach the basics.
https://www.baltimoresun.com/o... [baltimoresun.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Can you tell an op-ed piece from news? Yes this a complex social problem involving everyone, students, parents, and teachers. There are no easy answers. Do you think that teachers are simply not trying?
Well teach real facts (Score:2, Insightful)
Well if some states did not fine or arrest teachers for teaching facts, then maybe this would not be a problem. The way things are going, the safe bet in many states is to teach myths from a book that is between 1500 and 3000 years old
Also pay them a living wage, remember you get what you pay for.
Re: (Score:1)
That and many states, e.g., Texas, want to take education funds and allow private schools to dip their snout in the trough. They are not thinking private as in elite, they are thinking private as religious. It is important to indoctrinate the little sprogs while they are too young to think for themselves.
Re: (Score:2)
That's a part. Another part is that anyone qualified to teach CS can get a job that pays more for fewer hours/week. This is also true for many other skill sets. And you've got to put up with massive abuse from parents.
That it's hard to get enough qualified teachers should hardly be a surprise.
I could teach (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: I could teach (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: I could teach (Score:4, Funny)
My daughters 3rd grade teacher quit mid-year last year to take the noon shift as the manager of a Sheetz, big fancy gas station, because it paid more, had better benefits, had fewer hours, and had fewer jerks to deal with.
It's a bit mean to label them all as jerks - they're only in 3rd grade.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: I could teach (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
So... jerklets?
Re: (Score:2)
My daughters 3rd grade teacher quit mid-year last year to take the noon shift as the manager of a Sheetz, big fancy gas station, because it paid more, had better benefits, had fewer hours, and had fewer jerks to deal with.
It's a bit mean to label them all as jerks - they're only in 3rd grade.
I get the joke (I didn't LoL, but you got a mild smirk of amusement), however the jerks that teachers have to deal with are not the kids (although they can be) it's the parents (9 times out of 10, a 9 yr old jerk has two adult jerks who raised them that way). The parent's don't actually give a shit about their little shit until it interrupts them and they have to come down and "deal" with activist teachers who dared interrupt mummy's morning chardonnay. They'll tear up heaven and earth to make sure that ups
Re: (Score:2)
Companies are reigning that in, apparently as a pretext to encourage staff to resign without having to admit layoffs to investors, or to pay the benefits layoffs would require.
Re: (Score:2)
Please, forgive me, I meant to say companies are "reining that in".
Re: (Score:2)
I have an MS in CS and could get certified quickly. But, I won't. Why should I? I work remotely with minimal supervision. Why tolerate the extreme schedule rigidty, interacting with unruly children, and getting called scum by a large proportion of the population, for a 75% cut in pay?
So the real question is going to eventually become what do we want more; dumb children who can barely compete in their own country, let alone a planet out-educating them, or incredibly high taxes to make up for a 50 - 75% difference in pay?
Sounds like we're not going to attract any type of teacher otherwise in the near future. Hope the AI bobblehead is better at teaching than the real thing, because we're headed there.
quit passing those who are failing. (Score:3)
Re: quit passing those who are failing. (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: quit passing those who are failing. (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
He might be making more money as an entry level garbageman than his teacher does.
Re: (Score:2)
And this is the reason why the diploma they get is totally worthless. If I could enroll my dog in a course and he would get a passing grade, all the degree certifies is that they're housebroken.
Re: (Score:2)
I have seen a email sent from school administrators to their teachers that asks them 'Would you rather be teaching or being deposed in a lawsuit for failing someones child?' This is the reason why its all broken. They are leaving them behind by pushing them toward the finish line without preparing them for the future.
In addition, if the kid is a problem the quickest way to get rid of them is to pass them so they move on and become someone else's problem.
Start with English and Math (Score:2)
What about we start by paying teachers? (Score:4, Insightful)
It's really hard to attract good teachers when you don't pay them.
It's especially hard since if you are even remotely competent in CS you would get WAY more money in the industry than in education.
I train high school teachers to be better CS teachers (for HS). They often mention unless you are a true believer in public education, people move to other career because the pay is so bad.
Re: (Score:2)
Nope I suggested that and was modded down. Apparently if you want to teach you're supposed to live out of your car.
Yay! More! (Score:2)
The output for this program is "You racist colonize!"
TOTALLY AWESOME!
The Proficient 17-year old. (Score:2)
"...as states make good on pledges made to tech CEOs to make their schoolchildren CS savvy."
And I'll believe that bullshit when tech CEOs start hiring high school graduates instead of demanding 22 year old CS graduates crippled with $50K of debt.
Saavy is defined as well informed and proficient. Prove a sprinkling of CS teaching is going to show that.
Re: (Score:2)
"...as states make good on pledges made to tech CEOs to make their schoolchildren CS savvy."
And I'll believe that bullshit when tech CEOs start hiring high school graduates instead of demanding 22 year old CS graduates crippled with $50K of debt.
Saavy is defined as well informed and proficient. Prove a sprinkling of CS teaching is going to show that.
You left out: demanding 22 year old CS graduates crippled with $50K of debt, willing to work cheap and has 10 years of experience in a language only 5 years old...
Can we start with Teacher Pay? (Score:2)
I am going to be flat honest. I would love to teach CS for a living and I did as a side job for a bit. The problem is the pay for teachers is horrid and I would have to become a contractor on the side just to make ends meet.
Sorry, I don't have the body for OnlyFans and if I were to teach CS, I probably wouldn't have the time to work out to get there.
Re: (Score:2)
We've tried this before (Score:2)
I am not quite old enough for direct experience of this, but there was a major education panic in the US around the time of the launch of Sputnik.
There weren't enough math and science teachers in K-12 education.
There were two proffered solutions:
* New Math
* Chemistry and Physics courses on film and filmstrips that could be taught by non-specialists
Any guesses as to how well they worked?
Any similarities to current trends in math education and science-by-remote-learning are purely conicidental, of course.
Re: "The Beating of a Liberal" (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
I know right? Did I say pathetic twice or troll?
Re: "The Beating of a Liberal" (Score:4, Insightful)
Just flag it as spam and move on.
Re: (Score:2)
it's probably an institutional bad actor.
That's certainly possible, but it could also be someone running a long-lived public sentiment experiment, or a fed bait or psyop, or something even more off the wall.
Without more information, we'll never really know. In the meantime, I still get a nostalgic chuckle when I see these old troll spams.
I almost miss the one about Cucking Zuck, or something like that.
Re: (Score:2)
Ah, yes, whatever happened to "Swastika banner" guy?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Please, yes. I'll bring the popcorn.
Maybe some of the Asian kids could help out the slower Western kids and teachers.