British Schoolchildren To Get Programming Lessons

judgecorp writes "The British Education Secretary Michael Gove has said that the school ICT curriculum will be scrapped and replaced with programming and real computer science. Britain's schoolchildren have had compulsory ICT (information and communications technology) lessons for some time, but they are hated by staff and pupils alike, amounting to little more than Power Point training, using the products rather than understanding the code. There is room for improvement — and the British-designed Raspberry Pi could be part of this, but can the new system break away from the old product-centric regime when it will apparently be sponsored by companies including Google and Microsoft?"

Comments

It shouldn't be mandatory

[elrous0]

the current ICT curriculum will be scrapped in September this year, to be replaced by compulsory lessons in computer science and programming.

While I appreciate the need to expose students to computer classes in the same way they're exposed to other subjects, I don't think that something as specific as programming should be a *mandatory* requirement. Programming is a vocation, like many vocations, that some people are cut out for and other people are not. Those with a true passion for it will actively seek it out and those with no interest in it will hate it no matter how many programming classes you force them take. You can't MAKE a great programmer any more than you can MAKE a great engineer, mechanic, etc. Someone has to WANT it first. And forcing someone to take a programming class isn't going to make them a better programmer, any more than forcing me to take a class in shop is going to make me a better carpenter.

I think vocational classes should always be optional. Expose the kids to it, fine. Talk about vocations like programming in mandatory classes, but ultimately let the kids CHOOSE the optional classes based on their interests. The idea that you can turn your country into a tech giant just by forcing kids to take programming classes is ridiculous (if anything, you'll create a country that RESENTS programming).

Offer the classes, make them intensive and varied, and let the kids who WANT to be programmers come to YOU (and they will).

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[SJHillman]

Way back in 6th grade, we did "programming" with LogoWriter as a topic of our overall computer class (along with the basics like word processing, basic file management, Oregon Trail and of course typing). It was a nice introduction to programming that was suitable to that level of schooling. We were also given enough leeway to play around with variables and try new things that it piqued the interest of almost everybody. However, and entire class on just programming may be a bit much. Maybe offer programming as an alternative to having to take a foreign language (why is that mandatory anyway?).

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[Nursie]

Except these things have such a huge presence and impact on the modern world that a mandatory intro to understanding and programming them is a damn good idea.

Besides which, computer science is not necessarily vocational, it's also an academic and theoretical science.

"You can't MAKE a great programmer any more than you can MAKE a great engineer, mechanic, etc?"

No, but you can make sure they get exposed to it, like we do with sciences, languages and literature.

Those with a true passion for it will actively seek it out

And this is where you fail. They may know nothing about it.

Besides which, if you read TFA you'd find out this isn't several years course resulting in exams, just a replacement to the current braindead "Here is how to open a document in word, here is how to change a font" bullcrap that's passed off as "Computer Education" in British schools at present.

Examined courses (GCSE at 14-16, A-Level at 16-18) will still be optional. If I'd known about programming (other than C64 Basic) when I was 12 I'd have been all over that, as it was I didn't really start until university at 18. This is a very, very good thing.

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[sandytaru]

The most programming I did when I was in primary and secondary school was using the simplified form of BASIC to write programs for our TI-82 calculators. The best part of that? If we were successful in programming our calculators, we were permitted to use them to crunch equations for our physics and math classes. If we screwed up the programming, we screwed up the tests. But if we were successful in coding the programs, then we'd score well on the tests. The trick was that all programming had to occur within classes just before the test; no transferring or copying programs from calculator to calculator the night before. (We had to leave them in the classrooms overnight before tests.) This served two major functions: It taught us the guts of the equations, and it taught us some of the most essential raw programming skills. One girl did such an amazing job with her physics programs that she scored a one hundred percent on the final exam, a first in the history of the school.

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[SpinyNorman]

Some basic undrestanding of computers isn't really vocational - nowadays they are so pervasive (in all your gadgets as well as computers themselves) that it's really basic knowledge. I'd put knowledge of how computers work (incl. basic programming) in the same class as something like physical geography (how mountains, glaciers form, etc)... If you want to understand the world around you then these are basics you need to know... it's more a matter of foundational knowledge than vocational training.

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[flaming error]

As ubiquitous as CPUs have become, maybe understanding how they work is becoming a good idea in general, and not as "specific" to vocational programmers as it once was.

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[vlm]

Programming education done right forces people to think logically and break down from top level goals to individual machine language instructions/microcode.
Very applicable for any person in almost any field. Much virtually no one uses calculus once they graduate, but everyone has to learn it, because its excellent logical/mental training for hard science related work.
Programming training (aka code monkey and IT) is probably not necessarily useful.

Another interesting area is everyone likes to think they're very "special" and no outsiders can understand them, but at least some traditional programming development strategies (waterfall, agile, etc) can be applied in completely non-programming environments. You can run a project designing RF amplifiers using waterfall perfectly well without involving a line of code. Its probably way the heck easier to teach these project management techniques in the field they developed in, rather than shoehorning them somewhere weird.

Finally, insert Barbie doll saying "Math is hard!". If its mentally challenging, its good mental exercise, and no further justification is necessary.

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[Anonymous Coward]

The foreign language is mandatory because it has been proven that learning a second language, especially early on, vastly improves your chances of learning a 3rd, 4th, 5th and so on language. The idea being that even if the learned language isn't something that is used, the skills provided will be helpful should you need to learn something specifically.

Of course, if you ask me, mandatory anything at school is a bad idea, but that's a different topic.

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[somersault]

Some kids might love it, but not know until they try. Their parents may just sit them in front of a games console or send them outside and not give them any access to the 'net or books for them to find stuff that they enjoy.

I'd say have at least one "compulsory" programming session, maybe a few since you can't do much in one class. There are all sorts of classes in school to get kids to try vocational-type things that they may hate. Art, music, mathematics, science.. they all take a certain type of person to do well, but you need to try it before you really know.

Surely the same applies to shop class and carpenters? I've had very limited experience of metalwork and woodwork outside of school, so I enjoyed getting to try them out - though I wouldn't do them for a living. Then again I'm sure some people really loved the classes and went further with it, then went on to be mechanics, welders, carpenters, or whatever.

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[Shimbo]

the current ICT curriculum will be scrapped in September this year, to be replaced by compulsory lessons in computer science and programming.

While I appreciate the need to expose students to computer classes in the same way they're exposed to other subjects, I don't think that something as specific as programming should be a *mandatory* requirement.

Fortunately, the quote is pretty much the opposite of what he said. A better summary would be:

1. ICT will continue to be mandatory.
2. The detailed, government required program requirements will be abolished.

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[Anonymous Coward]

the current ICT curriculum will be scrapped in September this year, to be replaced by compulsory lessons in computer science and programming.

While I appreciate the need to expose students to computer classes in the same way they're exposed to other subjects, I don't think that something as specific as programming should be a *mandatory* requirement. Programming is a vocation, like many vocations, that some people are cut out for and other people are not. Those with a true passion for it will actively seek it out and those with no interest in it will hate it no matter how many programming classes you force them take. You can't MAKE a great programmer any more than you can MAKE a great engineer, mechanic, etc. Someone has to WANT it first. And forcing someone to take a programming class isn't going to make them a better programmer, any more than forcing me to take a class in shop is going to make me a better carpenter.

I think vocational classes should always be optional. Expose the kids to it, fine. Talk about vocations like programming in mandatory classes, but ultimately let the kids CHOOSE the optional classes based on their interests. The idea that you can turn your country into a tech giant just by forcing kids to take programming classes is ridiculous (if anything, you'll create a country that RESENTS programming).

Offer the classes, make them intensive and varied, and let the kids who WANT to be programmers come to YOU (and they will).

While I appreciate the need to expose students to cookery classes in the same way they're exposed to other subjects, I don't think that something as specific as cooking should be a *mandatory* requirement. Cooking is a vocation, like many vocations, that some people are cut out for and other people are not. Those with a true passion for it will actively seek it out and those with no interest in it will hate it no matter how many cookery classes you force them take. You can't MAKE a great cook any more than you can MAKE a great engineer, mechanic, etc. Someone has to WANT it first. And forcing someone to take a cooking class isn't going to make them a better cook, any more than forcing me to take a class in shop is going to make me a better carpenter.

I think vocational classes should always be optional. Expose the kids to it, fine. Talk about vocations like cookery in mandatory classes, but ultimately let the kids CHOOSE the optional classes based on their interests. The idea that you can turn your country into a culinary giant just by forcing kids to take cookery classes is ridiculous (if anything, you'll create a country that RESENTS cooking).

Offer the classes, make them intensive and varied, and let the kids who WANT to be cooks come to YOU (and they will).

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not about forcing kids to become programmers, it's about exposing them to and teaching them actual things about computers rather than just how to use Office. In the same way that you don't try and teach advanced quantum theory at highschool level, but you do introduce the basic concepts and how they apply to physics in a general sense.

I mercifully missed out on ICT being taught at GCSE because it wasn't brought in until after I left school, but having seen my brother's sample exam paper I don't know why they even bothered. It makes the ECDL look complex; questions like "Here is a picture of a keyboard, is this an input device or an output device" and coursework involving the design of databases on paper printouts of Excel sheets.

People increasingly seem to be of the opinion that "kids these days" know all about computers because they use them all the time, but it's bollocks. They know about Facebook, Twitter, iTunes and how to stream porn; they don't know any more about computers than most 40-somethines, they're just more comfortable using them. If they can genuinely reform the IT teaching in the UK (which is highly doubtful, but you never know) so that kids are taught hardware, software and programming fundamentals then it would be nothing but beneficial.

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[John Courtland]

I'm personally of the opinion that the vast majority of modern white collar jobs are going to require some form of computer programming in the very near future. For example, my wife works in supply chain and the ridiculous shit they do because they are simply ignorant of even 50 year old computing methods cause them to waste a considerable amount of time and resources. It's not uncommon either, people get in a rut doing repetitive, computationally simple tasks because they don't know any better. Those kinds of jobs are doomed and I think that in order to be competitive or even hire-able you will need to know how to automate the minutiae.

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[Gordonjcp]

I guess it's a bit like the driving test - as part of that you need to demonstrate that you know how to check things like the oil and water and that you know at least theoretically how to change a wheel.

It's not that everyone is expected to go out and become a car mechanic, it's that drivers are expected to know why it's a bad idea to drive around on flat tyres with no oil in the engine.

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[Anonymous Coward]

You can't MAKE a great programmer any more than you can MAKE a great engineer, mechanic, etc.

And yet we teach physics to every student who may or may not be engineer, and teach art to every student who may or may not be artist. Sorry but you're wrong. Teaching basic, simple programming is useful because it can introduce it to students who might just find it fun but might not discover it otherwise. This is especially important today when computers are getting less and less open that it is very difficult for a kid to accidentally discover the joy of hacking.

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[RMingin]

Nobody (except you, apparently) is talking about mandatory training to become a programmer. This is more like a familiarization course, so that they at least know what a programmer IS and what that job entails. An astounding percentage of people seem to consider "programmer" on par with "wizard" in terms of comprehension.

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[lucian1900]

But kids have mandatory arts for example (at least in other countries), to get them exposed to it. They don't yet know what they like.

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[elrous0]

I'm fine with a mandatory "Basic Computer Science" class or something along those lines, one that *exposes* kids to programming. But actual programming classes are getting into a specific vocation. And that, like all specific vocational classes, should be optional. I wouldn't want my mechanic to be forced to take a programming class any more than *I* would want to be forced to take a mechanic class (even though both are quite useful skills to have).

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[scubamage]

That's a really cool way to go about teaching a bunch of things all at once. I like it!!

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[flirno]

They should start more fundamental and introduce them to grammers which would be useful to programmers but also to human language studies.

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

I (somewhat) beg to differ:

Software engineering is definitely a vocation(or at least a job). Paint-by-numbers in the corporate fad language of today, assured to be obsolete by the time you graduate, is also pure vocational training. So too are the specifics and details that are involved in large-scale projects(knowledge of revision control, project management and project-being-managed, etc, etc.)

However, computer science is a branch of mathematics and arguably has the same claim as calculus or geometry to some portion of instructional time purely as a matter of general education. In addition to simple 'breadth-of-knowledge' stuff, the same thing that rationalizes all curriculum that isn't purely vocational, there is a very good argument to be made that a degree of programming knowledge(on the level of basic shell, or python, or even Office vbscript macros) is a very, very valuable tool for enormously increasing the power of the learner over all sorts of computer-related or computer-assisted tasks(which a great many of them will almost certainly be doing at some point in their lives, even if with a different high-level scripting/glue language).

Unless the kiddie wants to actually go down the CS path, flunking him for failure to grok MIPS assembly or keep his pointers straight is mere cruelty without purpose. Giving a basic grounding in programmatic operations provides enormous power over the "I could just do it manually if there were 10 of them; but there are 10,000" style problems is both practical and (potentially) might spark further interest.

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[inviolet]

While I appreciate the need to expose students to computer classes in the same way they're exposed to other subjects, I don't think that something as specific as programming should be a *mandatory* requirement. Programming is a vocation, like many vocations, that some people are cut out for and other people are not. Those with a true passion for it will actively seek it out and those with no interest in it will hate it no matter how many programming classes you force them take. You can't MAKE a great programmer any more than you can MAKE a great engineer, mechanic, etc. Someone has to WANT it first.

I taught my two sons to program. Only one of them liked it, but they both got an astonishing side benefit from it: it taught them to see their own brains as software... with algorithms and bugs. In the context of a broader parent-child discussion of recognizing and dealing with personality bugs, programming seems to make it real, in a way that no amount of lecture can.

Haven't you noticed how few people are introspective, how few are even capable of thinking that their thoughts and feelings may be incorrect?

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[umghhh]

...Maybe offer programming as an alternative to having to take a foreign language (why is that mandatory anyway?).

You realize of course that foreign language is a basic skill for almost anybody in the world as it lets kids recognize the fact that there are people beyond borders of your country and that these people speak, it allows you also to know about these people and communicate with them. Besides this it may allow you to be exposed to other cultures which may be beneficial.

OTOH I always hated big part of my curriculum. I understood at some point that the school (university also) is just a tool that lets you learn basics among them how to learn effectively as well as exposes you to things I never thought existed. Surviving pointless classes is a ability that lets you also surviving blah-blah produced by management and marketing deps of different companies as well as nonsense produced by politicians in your country by providing you with well trained ability to ignore them effortlessly.

Of course it also may be that you live in a country that such exposure and access to foreign media is not appreciated and even forbidden, ever wondered why is that? Could this be that the command of 'foreign' language may be used a weapon against tyranny?

Yet another thought - in country I live in at least 14% of population speak another language than I do. It is 'foreign' language yet it can be useful for my son to speak it as majority of his peers at school speaks it off of school. Of course learning some languages may be less useful as others.

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[Nursie]

As much as I approve of the educational changes, it is rather advantageous that the profession be thought of as wizardry, it keeps the numbers low and the money flowing!

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[Natales]

I disagree. By making programming mandatory you help these kids create new ways of thinking. It's not about the programming itself, it's about learning how to understand interactions among abstract entities, and how to take a problem and separate it into many smaller problems. Those skills are valid for all disciplines and are useful all your life regardless of what you end up doing in life.

As an added bonus, 20 years from now, none of those kids will see computers as magic, and they would have learned at least the basics on how things work internally, a skill that some lawmakers would really benefit from.

I haven't solved a single Calculus equation in 25 years, and although I was good at it, I couldn't probably do it any more without going back to the books, but one thing I can say, is that I can clearly remember the way my way of thinking changed after I learned those skills. I was never the same, and I applied the logic created by those new neural pathways in all areas of my life.

I see programming being an extension of math from that perspective, where logical, structured and rational thinking helps develop areas in your brain at a critical age that you could not get if this would be optional.

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[Anonymous Coward]

Except these things have such a huge presence and impact on the modern world that a mandatory intro to understanding and programming them is a damn good idea.

Plumbing has a huge presence and effect on the modern world. Students aren't given a mandatory introduction to understanding plumbing just because of that.

On second thoughts, perhaps that's also a damned good idea!

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[shadowrat]

Anything that exposes people to what programming a computer is really about is a good thing. Maybe in 20 years there will be a bunch of managers and hr people that say stuff like, "how can you possibly think you will get that system implemented in 2 months, you need 2 years at least!", or, "No bob, we don't need a programmer to manage our twitter feed."

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[thomasw_lrd]

The problem with mandatory foreign language is (at least in the US), they don't start until high school. They should start in at least 3rd or 4th grade? Probably in Kindergarten. Waiting until high school is just pointless.

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[umghhh]

I'm personally of the opinion that the vast majority of modern white collar jobs are going to be off shored in the near future.

.

Here it is I fixed it for you.

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[Anonymous Coward]

Being a mathematician is a vocation, nontheless kids are teached basic maths and oh my god even geometry you know the queen branch of mathematics that teaches you how to apply deductive reasoning ?.
Maybe 99% of school kids will never ever embrace programming as a work skill. Even so, in a modern technical society not knowing the basics of what computers and computer science is about is wrong. Teaching them aspects of logic/programming, of how computer works etc... is a good thing even if they will never open a pc case the rest of their lives.

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[buglista]

and you can't make anyone a great mathematician, but we still teach arithmetic.

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[willaien]

I would, admittedly, "cheat" for some of the harder equations. I wrote some software that would solve about 50% of a particularly awkward and long type of equation. I would just change the variables. Then again, I could do it by hand, and I obviously understood the problems if I could write a program to do it for me, so I didn't really see the big issue.

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[Anonymous Coward]

This argument fundamentally misunderstands the concept of education.

Woodshop, metalshop, cooking, mathematics, creative writing, sports, religious studies, are all "vocational subjects" too - if you choose to look at things that way. Take those all out because they are "vocational", and what do you have left? It is obvious that *any* subject of study is also a subject of work, even if that work is only continued study.

The validity of a subject within an educational context has nothing whatsoever to do with its usefulness in a vocation. The thing is, you're sort of arguing this point, but contradicting it at the same time by saying useful subjects should be optional. No, the design of the mandatory curriculum should be *independent* of the vocational status of any given subject.

Your heartfelt assumption that people are in two camps - programmers and non-programmers - and that mandatory education will polarize these camps further, absolutely denies the effectiveness of education. If you believe that then why have mandatory classes *at all*? Or, indeed, school?

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[Bert64]

I fully agree with this, if you force kids to take programming classes most of them will HATE the class...
The result of this is that the kids who hate the class will disrupt their peers, so that even the kids who might be interested in programming will be put off either via peer pressure or due to the classroom environment being too unruly.

They do need to teach general IT tho, not programming but the general concepts of performing common tasks such as accessing the internet and typing a letter. What they should not do however, is stick to a single platform or set of apps... Kids should be taught the general concepts, and how they can be applied to different applications.
If you teach specific software, then by the time they leave school that software will be obsolete.. It will be replaced by a newer version, something else or its function may even be entirely obsoleted.

Something else that needs doing, is to provide the kids free access to computers in school... Not restrictive access where they can't do very much, but unrestricted access to machines set up for that purpose with encouragement. Give them unrestricted root access, but have it reset to a standard image each time you reboot it or on request... Or give them unrestricted access to their own VM. Above all, make sure they know they can do what they want, without fear of causing any permanent damage and without fear of punishment.

Many kids in poorer areas don't have access to computers at home, and having access to a restrictive environment that only permits them to use a word processor is not going to drive any interest. There are plenty of people who would have made good programmers, had they had access to learn.
Even those who do have access to a computer at home, may find that it is shared with other family members and therefore are fearful of truly experimenting with it incase they break it and incur anger from the other users.

Kids learn by trying things, but if you punish them for trying then they will not learn anything and just grow resentful.

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[Bert64]

Same in the UK, they don't start until secondary school (equivalent of high school i guess), and are pretty basic (Teaching you how to order a cup of coffee in french or german)... And you will almost never encounter the language you learn anywhere but school.

In other countries where the primary language is not english, then english is generally taught in schools at quite an early age and is likely to be encountered regularly through the internet and on television...

People from Holland tend to speak very good english because most of the shows on tv are in english with dutch subtitles, teaching them both the meaning and (usually american) pronunciation of the words in an environment that's actually interesting for them...

A classroom is a terrible place to learn anything, you have a dull rigid environment which causes you to mentally switch off, combined with other kids who are there by force not choice and who can easily disrupt anyone who is actually trying to learn.

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[Anonymous Coward]

They cannot effectively teach math. There are no mandatory introduction to logic courses. What makes them believe that they can have an effective mandatory CS class, with students who have little to no mastery of either math or logic?

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[Bert64]

Cookery is different...
Sure, most people will never be michelin starred chefs no matter how many cookery lessons you expose them to, but people should be capable of preparing themselves a basic meal from fresh ingredients.

People with absolutely no idea how to even prepare the most basic of meals are part of the reason obesity is such a problem, these people simply buy ready prepared fast food as they get bigger and bigger.

With cookery it's not about teaching vocation skills they will use to make a living, its about teaching basic skills that they will use throughout their lives... After all, everyone has to eat.

And for cookery, the school should supply the necessary equipment and ingredients. I had to sit out cookery classes in school because i never had the requested ingredients. Being a kid i couldn't go out and buy them myself, i had to rely on my parents to provide them and they never bothered to do so.

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[Anonymous Coward]

Spot on - ICT in schools tends to be along the lines of how to use spreadsheets, word processors and the like (to a pretty basic level). Ironically most primary schools have more exposure to programming than secondary schools (doing things like keying in programs in BASIC or using the Turtle or whatever). A little programming/CS knowledge is certainly not wasted, even if you go on to do a totally unrelated job. It's really only a practical application of maths, so it might even do some good in getting more kids interested in what's traditionally quite a dry subject.

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[dkleinsc]

Programming is a vocation, like many vocations, that some people are cut out for and other people are not.

Computer science isn't the same thing as programming, first off. One of my CS profs pointed out that you can think of CS as a particular variety of applied math, and that it helps develop logical thinking, breaking down problems into component parts, and analyzing algorithms.

But even programming is something that has applications outside of software development. It arguably benefits anybody working in mathematical or scientifically oriented fields - accountants can make more sense out of spreadsheet macros, physicists can make more sense out of their experimental results, etc.

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[SJHillman]

I learned French in 6th and 7th grade, Latin in 8th grade, French in 9th and 10th (Latin teacher retired) and then got my third year of French waived because I went to BOCES for PC networking. I also spent one drunken night in college learning Esperanto. I still have no use for French, Latin, Esperanto or any other language.

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[Hatta]

Programming is not just a vocation. It's a life skill. Nearly everone uses a computer daily, and everyones daily life could be improved by using a little automation. Even if you never write a script you use yourself, understanding how programming is done allows you to understand the kinds of things that can be done and helps you ask the right kinds of questions.

Programming is one of those skills everyone should at least be exposed to, in order to be a well rounded individual.

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[kelemvor4]

The problem with mandatory foreign language is (at least in the US), they don't start until high school. They should start in at least 3rd or 4th grade? Probably in Kindergarten. Waiting until high school is just pointless.

I've got kids in elementary and middle school. 1Y foreign language is a minimum requirement to be promoted to high school (grade9) and is optional from Grade6. In the grades below 6 they're still trying to get the basics down for English/Math, and more importantly the basics of how to be a student in general.

Personally, I wish they'd give some better choices for foreign languages. Spanish is the de facto standard, and French is the only other option I saw. Why not Chinese, or Japanese, or Gaelic, or whatever else you can think of? That way my kids could communicate with their Chinese overlords in a few years.

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[Anonymous Coward]

Ironically, current ICT curriculum is horrifically vocational: use of IE and Office in early years, use of Photoshop etc in the more advanced GCSE classes (for 14-16 year-olds). This proposal is to allow schools to teach the more general principles (basic programming, binary logic, how computers work). Students in England don't get any say on their curriculum up to the start of GCSEs, so it being "compulsory" is actually referring to making it compulsory for schools to *teach* it at some level in all school years.

My younger brother is currently in the final year of the most advanced computer-related course he can elect to take at school at GCSE level. They have barely touched any kind programming other than copy-pasting simple statements in ActionScript in Flash, which IMO is pretty outrageous.

On the other hand, when I was at school (10+ years ago), IT wasn't even a subject. A couple of lessons per year in each subject would make use of the school's assortment of creaking 386s to tick an OFSTED box (the school inspectorate were keen on that kind of thing), but if you wanted to do anything more advanced than use LOGO you were on your own. Luckily for me, we had computers at home, and they required some understanding of how they worked to get them to do anything interesting, so by the time I got to GCSE age I was getting pulled out of lessons fairly regularly by the "head of IT" to fix the school network for them.

I'd love it if they scrapped the bogus IT crap they've been wasting masses of money on, and replaced it with just a couple of lessons per year writing simple programs with immediate visual output (basic games, hell, even just drawing stuff on the screen ala LOGO).

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[SJHillman]

I live in the northeastern US where English is king (unlike the south and southwest where Spanish is fairly widespread). Generally, the only foreign speakers around here are from Quebec and they're usually chased out of the state as soon as we see them.

I'd consider social studies to be far more important when studying the rest of the world as 1) it offers useful insights and 2) it covers more than one culture. I have no problem with foreign languages being offered as optional or even making a half year or year mandatory to expose students to another language, but four years of a foreign language that a tiny percentile of the graduating class will ever use seems a bit useless at best.

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[Hatta]

Actual programming classes aren't vocational any more than writing classes are vocational. Not everyone is going to be an author, but everyone can benefit from knowing how to write well. The same goes for programming.

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[delinear]

I fully agree with this, if you force kids to take programming classes most of them will HATE the class... The result of this is that the kids who hate the class will disrupt their peers, so that even the kids who might be interested in programming will be put off either via peer pressure or due to the classroom environment being too unruly.

That exact same argument could equally be applied to almost all the compulsory classes that get taught. I had to do something called "combined arts". This consisted of moving around all of the "artistic" disciplines, spending something like 6 weeks on each, which was just long enough that you couldn't get your teeth into anything that might be interesting. I had zero interest in learning to play an instrument, or dance, or acting, or textiles - the actual art part was okay but we didn't have enough time on it to do anything interesting. Also interestingly I hated maths at school, it was taught in such a boring way that seemed to have no real world application - the second I started getting into coding I became mesmerised with maths and would absolutely love to go back and study the subject properly, so it might even open new doors to learning.

At that level though you're really only giving people a basic grounding and a taste to see if they want to carry on with the subject at a higher level. I might not have enjoyed the dance classes but at least it gave me an education in what I didn't want to do with my life. Similarly textiles might seem pointless and I hated it at the time but I can at least fix a torn seam in a jacket. As computers become more ubiquitous in our lives it doesn't seem like a waste at all to give kids a taste of how these magic boxes work. Even if they hate it, they'll at least be more clued up than their parents which might help as there is an increasing chance that they'll have to work with programmers at some point.

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[History's Coming To]

The insistence of a (linguistic) language, here in Scotland at least (different education system to England & Wales) is part of a broader thing. When I was at school in the late 80s and early 90s the following were compulsory to age 14ish:

English
Maths
Science - either a general, low level class, or more specialist physics, chemistry and/or biology
A language (inc Latin if offered)
Physical Education
Religious Studies (not oriented at any particular religion)
Art/music

So it's part of ensuring a wide-ranging education. You specialise in 8 subjects at 14/15yrs and then down to 5 at 16/17yrs.

With regard to our old-school computing education, I had a similar experience, a little Logo and the like when I was about 8 years old (the BBC Micro) and then nothing until I did a computing class at 16. I did it because I felt that I should have a formal qualification to back up the tinkering I'd been doing for 8 years. Sadly it was a case of "this is a word processor, this is a spreadsheet, this is a database, here's your certificate". Utter joke, and it's been going on for far too long. This is a big step forward, I'm praying they do it properly this time.

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[Anonymous Coward]

Requiring 1 year of a 101 level computing course somewhere around the junior-high or high-school grades (or whatever the equivalents in U.K. are) isn't such a bad idea. I would agree with making that mandatory. It gives a good idea of what the underpinnings of things like various apps, websites, and other programs are, and what is involved in creating them. (And this would not be involving any "basic computing" stuff. It would specifically be programming. Any student growing up in a developed country should have most of those "basic computing" skills out of grade school anyways.)

However I wouldn't make mandatory any classes past the 101 introductory programming level. If the students want to pursue it beyond that, then offer the extra courses. It should be just like some science or language classes which are required in the curriculum at the basic level, but that the classes that expand on them are elective courses. (At least that was the way it was in my high school experience.)

Also some classes like this don't even have to be a full year. One semester for a basic course might be good enough in regards to exposure. Thus it wouldn't hurt the GPA of students with no programming interest nor talent too badly, but those interested would have those elective courses to expand and get more in-depth understanding and wouldn't be deprived.

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[GerryHattrick]

I did French fluently, and the French just smiled. I failed German, but tried, and all the best Germans have technical English (as do all Nordics) so we had great meetings. Now it's nice to 'make the effort' over coffee, but English is what you need when in session, anywhere. Good, unambiguous English. Focus on that.

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[Rogerborg]

Understanding the principles of how to make a computer work is no more 'vocational' in today's world than understanding the principles of opening a door.

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[elrous0]

Everyone can benefit from a basic knowledge of carpentry and automotive mechanics too. Would you like to make those mandatory as well?

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[CastrTroy]

However, can you learn to program well from a single programming course? Students take years of English classes and are immersed in the language, and still many students/people can't write a coherent thoughts longer than a single sentence. There's going to have to be quite a bit of instuction in programming to get people up to a level where they can actually use it to benefit their lives, or to make their job easier. Most people working in some kind of office would be extremely more efficient if they had enough skills to program basic stuff in Excel and learn how to use Access properly. But the amount of time it would take to train these people in this stuff is a lot more than most people seem to realize.

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[tehcyder]

Besides which, if you read TFA you'd find out this isn't several years course resulting in exams, just a replacement to the current braindead "Here is how to open a document in word, here is how to change a font" bullcrap that's passed off as "Computer Education" in British schools at present.

So do you think that children just magically know how to open a document in word and change a font?

They might seem laughably simple to an adult, but then so does adding 9 + 22 or spelling "picture".

The relationship between learning how to use Powerpoint and writing computer programs is approximately the same as that between knowing how to read and write and writing a poem or short story.

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[Nursie]

"So do you think that children just magically know how to open a document in word and change a font? "

Clearly you've not been through the UK education system, in which Opening a document in word and changing the font could be the entire curriculum for a year's IT course.

No, I think that children need to be told that programming is a thing, have it demonstrated to them that it's not necessarily that hard to get started, and that you can do more with all these fabulous technological devices than receive them, press buttons and consume media.

The relationship between learning how to use Powerpoint and writing computer programs is approximately the same as that between knowing how to read and write and writing a poem or short story.

Yup, all of which were mandatory in my education.

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[Anonymous Coward]

Same in the UK, they don't start until secondary school (equivalent of high school i guess), and are pretty basic (Teaching you how to order a cup of coffee in french or german)... And you will almost never encounter the language you learn anywhere but school.

In other countries where the primary language is not english, then english is generally taught in schools at quite an early age and is likely to be encountered regularly through the internet and on television...

People from Holland tend to speak very good english because most of the shows on tv are in english with dutch subtitles, teaching them both the meaning and (usually american) pronunciation of the words in an environment that's actually interesting for them...

A classroom is a terrible place to learn anything, you have a dull rigid environment which causes you to mentally switch off, combined with other kids who are there by force not choice and who can easily disrupt anyone who is actually trying to learn.

The main problem I find is a lack of non-English programs and books (Im in Scotland). Im re-teaching myself French after a gap of 15 years (Standard Grade French - all forgotten) and find that apart from online newspapers (which write *EVERYTHING* in the future tense, even stuff that happened in the past) there isnt that much beyond educational material - no TV shows, no real access to novels. I hit a wall when I tried Japanese - I had to learn at least one new writing system (hirigana and some common kanji) before I could even access written material.

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[elrous0]

the only foreign speakers around here are from Quebec and they're usually chased out of the state as soon as we see them.

I think the same is true in all self-respecting parts of Canada.

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[elrous0]

Automotive Mechanics is not just a vocation. It's a life skill. Nearly everyone uses a car daily, and everyones daily life could be improved by knowing a little auto repair. Even if you never rebuild a engine, understanding how auto repair work is done allows you to understand the kinds of things that can be done and helps you ask the right kinds of questions.

Automotive Mechanics is one of those skills everyone should at least be exposed to, in order to be a well rounded individual.

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[sarabob]

Given that they have been required to produce 'posters' since primary school and the first thing they want to do is change the font to comic sans, *yes*, they all know how to open a document and change a font.

At least since year 2 (6 year olds), anyway. TFA is about secondary ICT, which is incredibly *still* about powerpoint/word up to GCSE level.

When I asked one teacher if they taught any programming in ICT responded 'There's no point, because any language we teach them will be obsolete by the time they leave' (he didn't see the irony that he was teaching kids to use office 2003 in 2011). Would love to see the look on his face today :-)

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[dave420]

We had mandatory woodworking and metalworking lessons at school, including electronics and other stuff like that. It was pretty useful.

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[K. S. Kyosuke]

While I appreciate the need to expose students to computer classes in the same way they're exposed to other subjects, I don't think that something as specific as programming should be a *mandatory* requirement. Programming is a vocation, like many vocations, that some people are cut out for and other people are not.

Fortunately, there are people out there who beg to differ. They elaborate on their point of view in the preface to their learning materials, and it seems that they have succeeded in convincing quite a lot of people.

I have also been introduced into basics of biology and chemistry in high school, but despite becoming neither a professional biologist nor a chemist by vocation, I don't grumble about that. And more people come into direct contact with computer programs than with phyllogenetic trees and nitration processes, I would guess. They deserve to know what the stuff is all about, even if in superficial terms. A "how to misuse PowerPoint and Word" curriculum will only give them a fish, not a fishing rod.

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[IDK]

Everyone can benefit from a basic knowledge of carpentry and automotive mechanics too. Would you like to make those mandatory as well?

At least in Sweden basic carpentry is (was) a mandatory course. Basic automotive mechanics are learned when taking your driving license. Your point?

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[wed128]

Basic Wood Shop was a mandatory class in middle school where i grew up in New Jersey. Auto Shop was an elective. I went to a regular high school, not a vocational school.

I in no way think the wood shop that i took was a waste of time (I am a programmer). I wish now that i had taken auto shop, because i can't change my own oil.

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[sgbett]

10 print "YOUR NAME HERE"
20 goto 10
30 ????
40 Profit.

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[PixMan]

I remember a cogent comment from a podcast... if you were sent back in time 150 years, you wouldn't recognize much... but one thing you *would* recognize would be a classroom... a bunch of kids in a square room listening to a single adult talking at them... maybe we can do better?

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, in some public schools they do start in kindergarten. My son has already had three years of compulsory Spanish and is now starting Mandarin. He seems completely uninterested in it though! But it doesn't count towards his grades.

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[Randyj70999]

The problem is exposure, and education is about learning something important. Using Power-point or worse yet expecting a ECDL to give a leg up to students. Most students will never be scientist either, would you stop teaching science. It's EXPOSURE.

 

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[RobertLTux]

"Cookery is different...
Sure, most people will never be michelin starred chefs no matter how many cookery lessons you expose them to, but people should be capable of preparing themselves a basic meal from fresh ingredients."

in short if all you take away from your lessons is
1 how to boil water without burning it
2 how to cook an egg
3 how to grill a Steak (or other hunk of %critter%)
4 how to toast bread
5 how to chop food without chopping YOU in the process

then you can feed yourself decently

if you learn a few more things (like how to Make Bread) then you stand a bit better at keeping your chosen SO yours (and other useful things)

and as a Hacker you could be considered a GOD if you can do some stuff thats still short of MSC grade stuff. (hint if you can make Fudge starting with making the Chocolate your Lady Friends will worship you when they are feeling "Moon Burned")

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[rev0lt]

Programming is a vocation, like many vocations, that some people are cut out for and other people are not.

You mean, like arts, sports, geography, history, math, physics, etc?
I see no harm in exposing young students to basic programming concepts. The objective isn't creating new programmers, is teching people about how software works, and how to decompose problems into logical expressions, which is - by itself - a valuable addition to any field.

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[Anonymous Coward]

FYI. This is a generalisation. Children in my school learn foreign languages (Mandarin and French) from Year 3 (7yr old).

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[schlachter]

It's not that you will need to know how to automate the minutes, it's that people should be able to recognize when things can be automated and what the trade offs will be. Let them leave the actual automating to programmers.

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[Hatta]

Strict parallel construction fails when the subjects of the sentence are not actually analogous. Auto repair simply isn't the enabler that programming is. We encounter problems every day that can be, and should be automated. We don't encounter problems that require you to use a spark plug gapper on a daily basis.

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[oldmac31310]

I was 'too brainy' to be allowed to take carpentry as part of my curriculum and jumped at the chance to take the classes after school. That and technical drawing. Still really glad I did.

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[cc1984_]

You can't MAKE a great programmer

Try "sudo make a great programmer".

It's case sensitive

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[rev0lt]

About two decades ago, electricity and carpentry were mandatory disciplines in the 7th and 8th grade. I'm not a carpenter, but I can use the basic toolset, operate a tower drill and a table saw, do woodwork finishing with sandpaper and apply varnish if I need to. I learned it in school. Knowing how to exchange a wall socket is a bit like knowing how to change a flat tire - it is potentially dangerous, but you'll save yourself a lot of time and money if you actually know how to do it.
The same idea applies to plumbing - shure, complex stuff should be left to the professionals, but exchanging a connection pipe or installing a faucet is not more complex than using a cellphone or a computer browser, and everyone should know how to use them.

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[TheRaven64]

Given the average standard of computing teachers in the UK, having programming taught as part of the national curriculum is unlikely to make it seem less like magic...

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[oldmac31310]

Jeez, that's sad about the ingredients. I agree with your points and have to say that the AC you are responding to is making what I regard as a fundamental mistake: Separating so called 'vocational' subjects from other subjects. It seems to be a common error in this thread. Who is to say what is vocational? I think kids should be exposed to as much of everything as possible (within reason) and have some say in choosing what they are interested in. Regarding cooking in particular - if you can't do some basic cooking then as a human being you (not you!) have bigger problems. It really is not hard. I love cooking but I am glad I never had to take any classes.

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[Anonymous Coward]

I respect your view point but I couldn't agree less with this sentiment. I'll outline my objecting briefly.
Even if it a lesson is just "How to put a web page together in a TXT editor" It has to be better that "Point here, click this" They teach monkeys to do that.
Point and click has it's place and so does Code. But it need not be complicated and most importantly there are no barriers to entry what so ever.
You don't even need to turn on a computer to write code, you can use a piece of paper (Barrier to entry one piece of paper one writing implement and an imagination).

If "forcing kids to take programming classes is ridiculous" it's only as ridiculous as forcing them to learn reading and writing.

P.S. I was in the lowest Math group possible at school so low in fact that sometimes we even colored in pictures to past the time. I don't RESENT Math.

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[The Askylist]

Spelling and writing comprehensible sentences might be useful, as well ';-)

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[next_ghost]

Nonsense. This is a step in the right direction because if done at least a little bit well, it'll demolish the wrong perception of computer as a glorified typewriter. That. Is. The. Point. It won't turn all kids into programmers but it will show them what they can actually do with a computer. It'll show them that on a computer, you can solve very complicated problems by breaking them down into lots of simple ones and then solve those using many different tools available.

Look around how many people today are completely clueless when they need to use just two different programs to solve their problem. That's like having hammer and a saw but being unable to fix a plank fence because you can't cut the plank with a hammer and you can't hammer the nails with a saw.

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[mcmonkey]

The relationship between learning how to use Powerpoint and writing computer programs is approximately the same as that between knowing how to read and write and writing a poem or short story.

Students need to learn how to read and write before they can write a poem or short story (assuming they progress past the oral tradition). Are you saying students need to learn Power Point before they can learn programming?

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[Fallingcow]

online newspapers (which write *EVERYTHING* in the future tense, even stuff that happened in the past)

Really? I've never noticed this. A quick glance at Le Monde's website doesn't reveal this phenomenon, either. It's all compound ("perfect", IIRC) past (with avoir and être) and... bah, what's the other one called? With all the "ait" and such endings? Anyway, just both normal past tense forms. Not even any of the old-style, literary past tense (is that one called passé simple? The terminology's a bit hazy) let alone future-tense.

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[dadioflex]

One kid in the middle of a bunch of adults, all screaming facts at him? Come on, it's worth a try.

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes.

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[flirno]

That is just a matter of investing the cognitive and temporal resources necessary for correct spelling and comprehensible sentences -- the problem is value driven motivation (caring enough to do so out respect for audience - or not) and time management decision making values (writing it quick and sloppy now vs writing it more carefully later and value assigned to social impact of either choice) and habit (cognitive intertial bias/effect of the net of historical actions).

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[khellendros1984]

For Japanese, I use "Rikaikun" on Chrome, or "Rikaichan" on Firefox. They give little pop up translations of Japanese words, activated on mouse-over. It's incredibly useful for me, since I've got a basic grasp of grammar, but my vocabulary is severely lacking.

Reading hiragana and katakana isn't that hard. Learning the 1000+ kanji to be usefully semi-literate? Pain in the arse.

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[jc79]

... Maybe offer programming as an alternative to having to take a foreign language (why is that mandatory anyway?).

Because there are 3 non-English languages in the United Kingdom which are used in the various legislative bodies of the constituent nations (Welsh, Scots Gaeilic, Scots including Ulster Scots) and many more European languages spoken right next door. France is only 26 miles across the Channel, Belgium only slightly further, The Netherlands, Germany, Denmark and Norway are only an hour or so's flight away. The UK is a European nation, despite what certain Tory backbenchers and the Daily Mail and Daily Express might wish for.

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[Creepy]

the funny thing is, that program would even work because the interpreter would never get to 30 ;)

back in those days I'd use the "showoff" way of starting the program, too on the Apple ][ -
] call -151
* 3D0G

In my even more showoff days, I'd write the thing in assembler and disable cont-C for breaking the program just to annoy anyone trying to kill it.

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[jc79]

I wish now that i had taken auto shop, because i can't change my own oil.

You know, it's never too late to learn how.

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[colinrichardday]

Hermione Gringold: Programmis Compilitus!

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[cheekyjohnson]

And this is where you fail. They may know nothing about it.

Then they can try it for themselves.

I don't believe that advanced math or things such as this should be mandatory. It seems like a complete waste of time to me (since many people aren't likely to ever use it).

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[sm284614]

I'm a high-school ICT/Computing teaching in the UK (and have been directly involved with some of the discussion with the Royal Society, Prof. Steve Furber and others) and I've been teaching programming and some CS along side ICT for years now. Even the lowest ability kids can program and enjoy doing it. Nobody's asking 11 year olds to write C++, at that level it's Scratch, Alice and other visual languages that provide quick rewards for the use of a little logic. Every single one of they enjoys learning how to make games. SOme for the result, some for the challenge, but there's not a single one I can think of that resents it. Programming starts to get harder when kids have to write more code (flash/actionscript is a decent next step here) or actually do all the work themselves (VB, Python, C# etc.), and some won't get it, but everyone should have the opportunity to see what's possible The point of this move IS that everyone should be given a taster of what's possible; nobody's mind is going to be expanded by making PowerPoints, but some of the kids I introduced programming to seven years ago are now off to study CS at Oxford and Cambridge, hopefully to be the next generation of innovators. Equally, the jobs market is going to keep shifting in its requirement for technical experience: more advanced software, robotics, etc. means unskilled jobs disappear, and highly-skilled tech jobs replace them.

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[cheekyjohnson]

but everyone has to learn it, because its excellent logical/mental training for hard science related work.

I hear people say things such as this often. "X is mandatory because it makes people smarter even if they forget it and never use it." I don't think the effects of it are going to be that great, and even if they were, it's their 'loss'. I don't think everyone should be forced to take classes that 'teach' things that most people simply aren't likely to use in the future. It takes away time from things that they actually care about/need to use.

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[cheekyjohnson]

And yet we teach physics to every student who may or may not be engineer, and teach art to every student who may or may not be artist.

And I disagree with that, too. What matters to me is how likely the average person is going to use the knowledge after school is over. Basic math? I think it'd be pretty difficult to get around without that, so there's an example of something that I think should be mandatory.

Teaching basic, simple programming is useful because it can introduce it to students who might just find it fun but might not discover it otherwise.

Then they can take an optional class and discover it for themselves. If they don't, too bad for them.

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[Anonymous Coward]

I disagree and think compulsory exposure to CS/programming is a great idea. As a female developer, I only started coding when I was arbitrarily placed in a computer science class in middle school (attending high school for math and needed a second course there due to block scheduling). I doubt I would have elected to take CS- it never occurred to me that I might be interested- but given the exposure I ended up majoring in CS and making it my career.

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[Anonymous Coward]

I hate to do a "me too", but basic wood working is mandatory in primary schools in Norway from a fairly young age (at least it was 17-18 years ago). It helps you get a feel for DIY and get some practical experience of working with your hands and tools.

Primary school is there to give you a well rounded education, but also to let you sample bits from many different aspects of life. Otherwise, you may not have any clue about what you're good at or what you'd like to do with your life.

If people in general knew just a little bit of programming, I have no doubt we could increase massively increase the productivity in a lot of fields. Not everything is economically viable to hire a programmer in to do.

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[drsmithy]

I remember a cogent comment from a podcast... if you were sent back in time 150 years, you wouldn't recognize much... but one thing you *would* recognize would be a classroom... a bunch of kids in a square room listening to a single adult talking at them... maybe we can do better?

It's been an effective teaching method for millennia. Does it really need changing ?

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[drsmithy]

You realize of course that foreign language is a basic skill for almost anybody in the world as it lets kids recognize the fact that there are people beyond borders of your country and that these people speak, it allows you also to know about these people and communicate with them. Besides this it may allow you to be exposed to other cultures which may be beneficial.

It will also probably teach you about grammar and spelling, things likely sorely lacking from your English education if it happened in the last 15-20 years.

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[drsmithy]

I'm personally of the opinion that the vast majority of modern white collar jobs are going to require some form of computer programming in the very near future. For example, my wife works in supply chain and the ridiculous shit they do because they are simply ignorant of even 50 year old computing methods cause them to waste a considerable amount of time and resources. It's not uncommon either, people get in a rut doing repetitive, computationally simple tasks because they don't know any better. Those kinds of jobs are doomed and I think that in order to be competitive or even hire-able you will need to know how to automate the minutiae.

I'm not quite sure I follow your logic. Once the automatable has been automated, the person that did it is out of a job.

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[vlm]

Classic confusion of education vs training.

Yes training on some specific example you'll never use is a waste of time. Memorizing something that might be useful is well targeted training, memorizing something you never use is wasted training.

No there is no such thing as wasted education. Building your "thinking muscles" is never a loss because you can always retarget to something else, synthesize something new, etc.

Standard /. car example:

Getting training to cut 1/100th off your time around one specific standardized SCCA track does nothing to help you in the real world on the road. Getting education on how to properly apex a turn in general, is always useful in the real world on the road. Maybe a better one would be training on replacing the front brake disks on a '98 Saturn is not terribly useful for almost all home mechanics, but getting an education in how to replace brake disks in general is useful for almost all mechanics, even if they swear today that they'll never do a brake job, just knowing the concept of bleeding air out of a fluid filled hose might help them figure out they need to bleed the air out of their heater core if they intend to get any heat, or just knowing the concept that brake fluid is not generally interchangeable with power steering fluid might save them from using brake fluid to top up their steering (spare me the anecdote that an '81 AMC gremlin used ATF for both brakes and steering fluid, I'm talking about in general)

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[WastedMeat]

If having stored equations on a calculator made that much difference on a physics exam, your instructor was doing it wrong.

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[sgbett]

If you are UK based you'll probably remember Tandy - the shop was awesome, computers on display and assistants that had no idea how to undo what you did to them :D

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[Anonymous Coward]

While I appreciate the need to expose students to computer classes in the same way they're exposed to other subjects, I don't think that something as specific as programming should be a *mandatory* requirement. Programming is a vocation, like many vocations, that some people are cut out for and other people are not.

These people also include the kids who will grow up to be voters and legislators, and who end-up voting on things such as the SOPA and other laws affecting the net and digital lifestyles. This is similar to some amount of history education being considered important for people whose vocations won't include being historians.

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[cheekyjohnson]

Classic confusion of education vs training.

No. Education, training... I don't care. You might not view it as a waste of time, but I do. It's a subjective matter.

The bottom line is, I do not think that people should be forced to take classes that teach knowledge that a majority are not likely to use. If the majority aren't likely to use the knowledge, then I think the classes should be optional.

I don't care if it is true that some of these classes magically make people super intelligent even if they never use the knowledge and forget it a year later, I think they should be optional.

Building your "thinking muscles" is never a loss because you can always retarget to something else, synthesize something new, etc.

"Never a loss"? That's your opinion. It's a waste of time to me. Time that I could've used to learn something that I will actually need/am interested in.

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[Anonymous Coward]

France is only 26 miles across the Channel, Belgium only slightly further, The Netherlands, Germany, Denmark and Norway are only an hour or so's flight away. The UK is a European nation, despite what certain Tory backbenchers and the Daily Mail and Daily Express might wish for.

Of course the UK is in Europe, but it doesn't follow that it must be in the EU. FYI, Oslo is 2 hours away.

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[Anonymous Coward]

Their (or should that be "Us") Chinese overlords will be speaking English.

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[Anonymous Coward]

However, can you learn to program well from a single programming course? Students take years of English classes and are immersed in the language, and still many students/people can't write a coherent thoughts longer than a single sentence.

There you go. Some do well at math or gym and some don't, doesn't mean we shouldn't have those classes. Same with programming. Certain people will dread going to programming class just as they (or others) dread history and English.

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[Anonymous Coward]

In the UK, the driving test involves a bit of (the examiner asking you questions about) auto repair.

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[dbIII]

Why not? A few hours learning LOGO or similar gets a lot of useful concepts across. It's 2011 FFS, the guys who could only operate machine tools manually were getting squeezed out of manufacturing in favour of those that knew a bit about G-codes twenty years ago. Digital computers are here to stay and if everyone has a rough idea of what they do instead of putting it down to magic they will find that to their advantage.
It's not about making great programmers. It's so a lot of people get an idea of WTF those little machines are doing and get a rough idea of what is possible. It's about knowing the thing is a general purpose machine that can use any of hundreds of similar things to let you type your stuff instead of being stuck thinking it's nothing but some sort of MS Word terminal and freezing up in front of an almost identical application.

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[Nursie]

Great idea, change the classroom.

It's only been tried 20 million times in the last two or three decades, and none of the attempts so far seem to be better than the traditional method. So before we try your awesome new style on serious numbers of kids, can we collect some data on outcomes?

I'm only half being sarcastic here - there probably are better ways, but all I hear about from friends and relatives in the school system is that they have resulted in less learning and more disruption.

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[Nursie]

Once the automatable has been automated,

Then that's one less trivial task that humans have to do and one step closer to automated robo-utopia!

Oh alright, for now you're right, it could do someone out of a job. I don't see that as a bad thing in terms of human development but for that individual it's not good. OTOH, do you believe we should be creating busywork for people that could be done faster and more reliably by a machine?

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[Nursie]

Then they can try it for themselves.

For which they need to know that it exists, and be exposed to it at a basic level.

I don't believe that advanced math or things such as this should be mandatory. It seems like a complete waste of time to me (since many people aren't likely to ever use it).

1) Equating the moving of a few things round a screen in an educational language with "advanced math" is just flat-out wrong.

2) Most people will never use physics, chemistry, biology, foreign languages or anything else in their McJob, why don't we just leave them all pig ignorant? So much easier.

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[cheekyjohnson]

For which they need to know that it exists, and be exposed to it at a basic level.

Not that difficult, really. Informing someone of the existence of something doesn't require forcing them to take a mandatory class (not even to show them what it's like). Not to mention that that could be said about anything.

1) Equating the moving of a few things round a screen in an educational language with "advanced math" is just flat-out wrong.

What?

2) Most people will never use physics, chemistry, biology, foreign languages or anything else in their McJob, why don't we just leave them all pig ignorant? So much easier.

I agree. Why not just leave them ignorant of those subjects (unless they need them/want to take them)?

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[Nursie]

1) Equating the moving of a few things round a screen in an educational language with "advanced math" is just flat-out wrong.

What?

"Advanced Math" is in no way equivalent to a few logic puzzles and some animation using a teaching language/toolkit, as has been suggested.

Logarithmic regressions, partial differentiation, complex factorisation and fourier transforms (for example) are an order of magnitude more difficult than drawing a circle on the screen.

I agree. Why not just leave them ignorant of those subjects (unless they need them/want to take them)?

Oh dear, I was hoping to shame you into seeing my point, instead you've basically revealed that you don't believe in education. It's pretty pointless discussing this further with you.

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[cheekyjohnson]

"Advanced Math" is in no way equivalent to a few logic puzzles and some animation using a teaching language/toolkit, as has been suggested.

When I said that, I just meant that I was against things such as trigonometry, calculus, etc being mandatory. Or anything like it. Things that a majority of people likely won't use.

It was just an example.

instead you've basically revealed that you don't believe in education.

I don't believe I've revealed any such thing. I believe all I've revealed is the fact that I'm against mandatory classes that teach subjects that the majority of people won't use. If they want to take them, then the classes should be there for them to take (optional).

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[Nursie]

I don't believe I've revealed any such thing. I believe all I've revealed is the fact that I'm against mandatory classes that teach subjects that the majority of people won't use. If they want to take them, then the classes should be there for them to take (optional).

And yet if we don't introduce kids to these things, how will they get a taste of them and know if they want to learn?

If I hadn't had physics, mathematics and chemistry classes when I was younger, how would I have known to take the option when a little older?

And we're talking about kids aged around 10-12 years old here, they don't tend to be doing electives at that time either (but they are studying trigonometry!)

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[cheekyjohnson]

And yet if we don't introduce kids to these things, how will they get a taste of them and know if they want to learn?

I thought I've already answered something similar? "Not that difficult, really. Informing someone of the existence of something doesn't require forcing them to take a mandatory class (not even to show them what it's like). Not to mention that that could be said about anything."

Merely introducing someone to something isn't the same thing as forcing them to take a class. Perhaps the school could help them determine what classes they want to take, and perhaps show them a bit of the material (aside from doing their own research about it).

I'm mainly talking about high-school, by the way. The simpler things (basic math and such) could be taught early on. And if they fail to take the classes that they'll need in the future? Too bad for them. They can deal with it in the future (with the option to take classes that they need).

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[sandytaru]

Proper physics involves a lot of math. A lot of it. One tiny mistake in crunching a formula means a wrong answer, which means not full credit. Most of us passed the test; many of us fought tooth and nails to get As. I squeaked by with an 85 and was happy as a clam because that meant an A for the year. But a 100% - a perfect exam - had never been done before. The teacher had a long standing offer that anyone who did it would win a box of candy bars of their choice, which he honored for the winning student.

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[Nursie]

I thought I've already answered something similar? "Not that difficult, really. Informing someone of the existence of something doesn't require forcing them to take a mandatory class (not even to show them what it's like). Not to mention that that could be said about anything."

You did, but the answer is inadequate.

Hey kids - look! Physics! Is not anywhere near adequate to introduce kids to it properly, you need a couple of years.

I'm mainly talking about high-school, by the way.

Then you're an idiot because TFA is talking about much younger kids.

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[cheekyjohnson]

Hey kids - look! Physics! Is not anywhere near adequate to introduce kids to it properly, you need a couple of years.

Again, that can be said about anything.

But I'm sorry, that's the best they're going to get. They can do their own research, or if they feel it's the slightest bit interesting to them (or if they're curious), they can take the classes. This really isn't enough of a reason for me to say that people should be forced to take these classes just because some people are uncertain or ignorant.

Then you're an idiot because TFA is talking about much younger kids.

Obviously not what I'm talking about. I think it should be obvious that I disagree with this decision.

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[Nursie]

But I'm sorry, that's the best they're going to get. They can do their own research, or if they feel it's the slightest bit interesting to them (or if they're curious), they can take the classes. This really isn't enough of a reason for me to say that people should be forced to take these classes just because some people are uncertain or ignorant.

Then you disagree with the idea of a wide, general education for the young, which I said several posts up. If you disagree with this fundamental then we have no common ground to argue from and this conversation is pointless.

Obviously not what I'm talking about. I think it should be obvious that I disagree with this decision.

It's obvious you disagree with something, but it seems to be the entire idea of teaching kids a variety of fields and skills, in favour of having very narrow, self selected learning for 10 year olds!

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[cheekyjohnson]

Then you disagree with the idea of a wide, general education for the young, which I said several posts up.

If you mean a "wide, forced general education for the young," then yes.

It's obvious you disagree with something, but it seems to be the entire idea of teaching kids a variety of fields and skills, in favour of having very narrow, self selected learning for 10 year olds!

Above, I said that simpler things (basic math, etc) should be taught earlier on. In high school, you should (more or less) be able to choose what you want to do, aside from a few things that most everyone will need. I think this class should be available in high school, but optional. Or perhaps even earlier, but again, optional.

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[Nursie]

If you mean a "wide, forced general education for the young," then yes. ....
Above, I said that simpler things (basic math, etc) should be taught earlier on.

Then you disagree with the entire system of education in the UK.

In high school, you should (more or less) be able to choose what you want to do, aside from a few things that most everyone will need.

Indeed, and that is how it works.

I think this class should be available in high school, but optional.

It is.

What you miss out on is the period before specialisation, where kids are given education in a wide range, yes of mandatory subjects, so they get both a basic grounding in things we consider important in the world (geography, history, languages, and now technology), before they choose the direction they're going to take.

Again, if you disagree with that you disagree with the philosophy behind British education. TFA is simply about recognising that computers are now a major part of the world we live in, and that the current pre-specialisation classes are inadequate.

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[cheekyjohnson]

Then you disagree with the entire system of education in the UK.

I guess so. The US, too. Most countries, probably.

What you miss out on is the period before specialisation, where kids are given education in a wide range, yes of mandatory subjects, so they get both a basic grounding in things we consider important in the world (geography, history, languages, and now technology), before they choose the direction they're going to take.

I didn't miss out on that. As I've already made clear, I disagree with that type of 'education'. Forcing everyone to take classes just because they're unsure of what to do is not how I think things should work. Unless it's going to be used by most everyone, I think it should be optional.

If they miss out on that, then too bad for them.

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[Nursie]

Forcing everyone to take classes just because they're unsure of what to do is not how I think things should work.

But it's not just because they're unsure, it's because we think it's useful to everyone to have at least some grounding in all of these things, not just basic arithmetic and reading/writing.

It's also because without a good depth of study (a class or two per week for a year or two before kids choose their subjects to carry on with) it's very hard to know if someone's interested in the subject or has the ability to carry on with it.

Either way, you and I fundamentally disagree on the nature of education systems, talking about computer classes in particular is not useful.

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[Nursie]

Eeek, bad formatting. Let's try again

Forcing everyone to take classes just because they're unsure of what to do is not how I think things should work.

But it's not just because they're unsure, it's because we think it's useful to everyone to have at least some grounding in all of these things, not just basic arithmetic and reading/writing.

It's also because without a good depth of study (a class or two per week for a year or two before kids choose their subjects to carry on with) it's very hard to know if someone's interested in the subject or has the ability to carry on with it.

Either way, you and I fundamentally disagree on the nature of education systems, talking about computer classes in particular is not useful.

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[cheekyjohnson]

But it's not just because they're unsure, it's because we think it's useful to everyone to have at least some grounding in all of these things, not just basic arithmetic and reading/writing.

As I've said before, if they don't use it and don't care about it, it's unlikely that they'll remember it to begin with. Or, at least, that's the case with me and everyone that I know.

It probably won't result in much.

It's also because without a good depth of study (a class or two per week for a year or two before kids choose their subjects to carry on with) it's very hard to know if someone's interested in the subject or has the ability to carry on with it.

Then they can do their own research. Again, I disagree with the fact that classes are being forced upon people when most people aren't going to use the knowledge just because people aren't sure if they are interested in the material.

If they really want to find their desired subject, then another alternative would be to take all of the usual classes.

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[dewatf]

Except these things have such a huge presence and impact on the modern world that a mandatory intro to understanding and programming them is a damn good idea.

Yes these things have a huge presence. But this nonsense goes against all ideas of economics. Productivity dictates that you employ a few hundred or thousand people to work on Android and then just employ low skilled labour install it on billions of phones. The people building the phones, transporting the phones, selling the phones and using the phones which make up just about all the employment involving mobile phones don't have, nor will ever need to have, a clue about coding Android.

The idea that teaching 100% of 15 years to code will produce an economy where 100% of the labour force is made up of highly paid programmers is the typical fallacy that has made the British education system and economy the disasters that they are. Not the solution. And what is the economic reality of this high tech nirvana we are being promised British IT graduates are doing the worst of all graduates in terms of employment and their salaries are declining.

In a modern economy over 80% of the jobs are in service industries. You keep a job by dealing with people in some way that can't easily be replaced by a computer, robot or someone in China or India. You get paid in inverse proportion to the number of people prepared to do your job, which is often only restricted by artificial or regulatory barriers.

Sure you can teach everybody to hack perl. But if they are working on your accounts system, stock systems or customer database they better be able to write code that is reliable, test it thoroughly, make sure it is scalable and train their replacement in its use and maintenance or you will be out of business within a year. Only a few people are ever going to be capable or able to be needed to write the software that the majority will just learn how to use, and which will of course eventually run our Robot Overlords.

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[Nursie]

As I've said before, if they don't use it and don't care about it, it's unlikely that they'll remember it to begin with. Or, at least, that's the case with me and everyone that I know.

So you remember nothing of history, geography, languages, literature or anything else? And you resent being forced to study them?

Fair enough. Enjoy your ignorance.

Then they can do their own research. Again, I disagree with the fact that classes are being forced upon people when most people aren't going to use the knowledge just because people aren't sure if they are interested in the material.

THIS IS NOTHING TO DO WITH WHETHER 10 YEAR OLD KIDS ARE UNSURE OF ANYTHING.

How many fukkin times?

It's about giving people a grounding in essential subjects which, sure, can enable them to make choices later on, but is valid in its own right.

If they really want to find their desired subject, then another alternative would be to take all of the usual classes.

They're 10, they don't get electives, they get given a broad knowledge base to work from that educators feel is useful. I get it ok, you disagree with teaching kids anything they haven't researched and come to demand for themselves.

How much research did you do into your own education when you were 10?

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[natd]

The thing is, they have been progressively dumbing this down. I did BBC Basic at primary school (P7 1984-1985) as well as some weird 3D cube thing which I remember loving. Then I kept going on my Vic-20 (had from 81), other kids had their Amstrads, CPCs, PCWs etc. Then at high school around 3rd year we picked up again and while getting BBC Basic again, some assembly was included and other reasonably simple but worthwhile concepts were taught. Roll forward 5 years and my brother played games in primary school and was taught what a word processor was in those same classes that showed my class assembler. I'm relieved to see that this is starting tog et fixed, and can't help feel it's because my generation (late 30's) is now starting to be pretty representative in government and can see how big an opportunity has been missed.

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[cheekyjohnson]

So you remember nothing of history, geography, languages, literature or anything else? And you resent being forced to study them?

History? Aside from a few key events (and even those are pretty vague), nothing. Geography? Again, not much. Languages? If you mean foreign languages, nothing (wasn't interested, and the classes weren't very good, anyway). Literature? Again, not much. Maybe I just have an awful memory, but it seems to be this way for everyone that I know (and they came from various schools).

Resent? I view it as a waste of time, but I feel nothing about it.

Enjoy your ignorance.

I'll manage. I'm sure you manage being ignorant about a lot of things that you don't (and likely won't) use.

It's about giving people a grounding in essential subjects

Which I've already replied to.

They're 10, they don't get electives

I thought it would be clear by now that I disagree with much of the current public education system. I don't see why there can't be electives. I also thought it was clear that I disagree with this as a mandatory class. You keep bringing up with the fact that they're ten years old, but I do not care. I think it should wait until high school, and be an optional class. The original post was about how it shouldn't be mandatory. I agree with that.

I've already said that I think that early on, they should be taught the essentials, and then in high school, they choose what to do. By essentials, I mean things that most people will use.

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[cheekyjohnson]

I get it ok, you disagree with teaching kids anything they haven't researched and come to demand for themselves.

Only if it's not used by the majority.

How much research did you do into your own education when you were 10?

Not much. But even if I said otherwise, I'm sure I would be the exception.

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[natd]

So do you think that children just magically know how to open a document in word and change a font?

Well, my 4 years does, and has done for 6 months or so and I didn't teach him. He has a logon on my Mac (no password, just has to click to switch user etc) and access to nothing but Office. He calls it "doing letters" and types basic sentences and formats. He's found lots of features. There's a reason the Amiga GUI was called "Intuition" and the promise of the GUI on all platforms has been just that.

Maybe you're suggesting that schools should teach "pulling up pants after wee-wee" because they won't magically know? Parents and intuition should be allowed to to their bit and keep school for the really non-obvious stuff.

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[natd]

Are you saying students need to learn Power Point before they can learn programming?

This may finally explain why our "open defects" presentations are both so long and use the woodgrain background.

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[Nursie]

History? Aside from a few key events (and even those are pretty vague), nothing. Geography? Again, not much. Languages? If you mean foreign languages, nothing (wasn't interested, and the classes weren't very good, anyway). Literature? Again, not much. Maybe I just have an awful memory, but it seems to be this way for everyone that I know (and they came from various schools).

Resent? I view it as a waste of time, but I feel nothing about it.

Wow, ok, so you really don't value any sort of general education, and you do value your ignorance. Just, wow.

I'll manage. I'm sure you manage being ignorant about a lot of things that you don't (and likely won't) use.

I use my grounding in languages when I come across them, to interpret words in the European languages I can still read, give me an idea of those I can't and give me an insight into the origins of the language I speak.
I use my grounding in history to put the news I hear into historical context and better understand the world around me.
I use my grounding in geography to understand natural features and the different countries of the world.

etc.

All of these help me every day of my life and make me a better, more knowledgeable person with more insight into the myriad facets of my world. I value the study of a wide range of subjects very highly, even those that I didn't follow to a higher level.

I thought it would be clear by now that I disagree with much of the current public education system. I don't see why there can't be electives. I also thought it was clear that I disagree with this as a mandatory class. You keep bringing up with the fact that they're ten years old, but I do not care. I think it should wait until high school, and be an optional class. The original post was about how it shouldn't be mandatory. I agree with that.

That post, and you, are pretty much wrong in the context of modern education systems (which you probably don't care about). That's fine. Personally I'm glad you don't get a say.

I've already said that I think that early on, they should be taught the essentials, and then in high school, they choose what to do. By essentials, I mean things that most people will use.

Most people won't directly use anything they learned in school except to read and write and add up. We could teach them that in a year.

OTOH most people use computers, by introducing basic computer programming the minister hopes that many more people will use this knowledge, even if they don't go on to study it further or get employed in the sector, the knowledge will help them the same way other knowledge in a broad-based educational system helps them.

I do not understand the objection to this *in the context of a broad education system*. The OP was objecting to this specific change (and was wrong) .

Further to this, objecting to this *specific* change is irrational if you really disagree with the entire system.

Only if it's not used by the majority.

So you really only believe in vocational training? Fine, let's drop everything past addition and subtraction. Kids can research and choose on their own if they want to do algebra, or division, who needs to do division every day?

Seriously, you're arguing for a nation of ill-educated morons. Let me guess - do you support the abolition of child labour laws too?

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[Nursie]

I didn't know much math or logic when I started fooling around with my C64 when I was a kid, didn't stop me enjoying it and making things that amused me.

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[Anonymous Coward]

I taught my two sons to program. Only one of them liked it, but they both got an astonishing side benefit from it: it taught them to see their own brains as software... with algorithms and bugs. In the context of a broader parent-child discussion of recognizing and dealing with personality bugs, programming seems to make it real, in a way that no amount of lecture can.

Whatever model you choose to believe of the brain, it is most certainly not just software.

Taking software/programming as a massively simplified analogy or metaphor is one thing, and if it is useful to help certain personality types deal with reality then I have no problems with that. But don't think that you can sum up the complexity of the brain or human behaviour as just a slightly complicated program.

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[cheekyjohnson]

Wow, ok, so you really don't value any sort of general education, and you do value your ignorance. Just, wow.

Value it? No more so than you value your ignorance of things you know nothing about. I have no interest in them. I also don't have an interest in my ignorance of them.

I use my grounding in languages when I come across them, to interpret words in the European languages I can still read, give me an idea of those I can't and give me an insight into the origins of the language I speak.
I use my grounding in history to put the news I hear into historical context and better understand the world around me.
I use my grounding in geography to understand natural features and the different countries of the world.

Not everyone is cut out for doing those things or even cares about them. But, then again, I don't know just how many would find these things useful.

Your history example sounds like the most useful thing out of the three.

Personally I'm glad you don't get a say.

The only option people who are dissatisfied with this system have, really, is to pull their children out of school.

Most people won't directly use anything they learned in school except to read and write and add up. We could teach them that in a year.

Sounds good.

OTOH most people use computers, by introducing basic computer programming the minister hopes that many more people will use this knowledge, even if they don't go on to study it further or get employed in the sector, the knowledge will help them the same way other knowledge in a broad-based educational system helps them.

If someone can prove to me that a majority of people will use this knowledge, then I'll probably agree with the decision.

Further to this, objecting to this *specific* change is irrational if you really disagree with the entire system.

I don't believe that to be "irrational." Disagreeing with the entire system doesn't mean that I can't disagree with this change.

So you really only believe in vocational training? Fine, let's drop everything past addition and subtraction. Kids can research and choose on their own if they want to do algebra, or division, who needs to do division every day?

Every day? But I never mentioned anything about using something every day. A majority simply have to use it. Do the majority of people truly not use multiplication or division?

Algebra I can believe.

Seriously, you're arguing for a nation of ill-educated morons.

I'd say that doesn't sound too different from what we have now. The difference is that these "ill-educated morons" won't be, from my perspective, wasting so much of their time. Of course, I do not believe that someone merely being ignorant of something makes them an "ill-educated moron." If that were the case, that would apply to everyone.

Let me guess - do you support the abolition of child labour laws too?

Not really.

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[cheekyjohnson]

Another thing that could be used to determine if a class should be mandatory or not would be its potential "usefulness." Would it be useful to the majority if they could do X? How likely are the majority to do X?

That's why I'm unsure of history. There are at least a few key events that may be useful to know about.

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[RockDoctor]

and of course typing

I've never heard of a UK school (or county education authority, or national government within the UK) making typing training compulsory. Which, given the prevalence of keyboard work as an adjunct to both doing your day-job, and to interacting with government ("send us an email to ..."), does strike me as being a bit lacking.

It struck my father as a bit lacking over 30 years ago too - probably because as his job had developed, he'd had to learn hunt-and-peck typing on manual typewriters, then electric typewriters, then on teletype terminals to control lab equipment, and by the time I was in secondary school, he could see computers themselves coming into work (if not into the office environment, yet). So he paid for me to have some typing lessons outside school.

I don't claim to be a touch-typist. But I do have a higher typing speed than most of my colleagues in the same cohort. Damned useful - I can spend more time thinking instead of concentrating on which keys to hit.

Cue the gen-X-Y-or-Z-ers saying that in six months time we're all going to be using voice interfaces. Bull. Shit. Keyboards are going to be around for a long, long time.

Cue the Dvorak-vs-Azerty-vs-Qwerty religious warriors to pause in their flogging of dead horses : not a shit is given about your religious war ; I'm perfectly capable of typing on a UK keyboard, a US keyboard, or a Russian keyboard or a Hebrew keyboard or an Arabic keyboard.
(I do get pissed off though when an application changes the keyboard settings when it takes control, but doesn't release them when it releases control. Bastard trick.)
Your religions are all wrong - the One-True-Religion for keyboarding is, of course, Pastafarianism. All hail the FSM, who has a noodly appendage for every keyboard in the world, as well as an appendage to touch all users (who wish to be touched).

I don't know about your country, but the UK has never - to the best of my knowledge - required typing to be taught.

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[coolmadsi]

Same in the UK, they don't start until secondary school (equivalent of high school i guess), and are pretty basic (Teaching you how to order a cup of coffee in french or german)... And you will almost never encounter the language you learn anywhere but school.

It can be hard to encounter a European language [1], even in the country it is spoken. I have heard stories of friends of mine who wanted to try out the French they leared at school while in France. The people they try to talk to pick up that they are native English speakers very quickly and just talk to them in English (its quicker for them I guess). I have done travelling though some of Europe [2] and have usually been able to get by without learning much of the language there, because most people speak English. I had a problem once on a train, but the conductor had various translations written down and just pointed some at me.

[1] This may be true for non-European languages, but I have mainly experienced European ones and didn't want to assume it is the same everywhere
[2] The general impression I got was that almost everyone in Western Europe can speak English fairly fluently, and in Eastern Europe most can, however there is an age gap whereby some of the older population didn't learn it so don't speak it, but most of the younger population can speak English

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[Eunuchswear]

Vraiment? Vous le trouve totalement inutile?

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[SJHillman]

Speaking French is what would be totally useless when the only time you encounter it is a dumbass trying to be a smartass.

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[evilgraham]

I'm going to have to both agree with, and disagree with these points.
There are some things in education which are essential tools for anyone in the modern world - Arithmetic and basic English (or whatever native language you speak), aka. reading and writing, basic literacy. Then there are basic practical things, perhaps vocational if you will; a basic knowledge of carpentry, etc. plus the opportunity to practice it will in all possibility at least encourage a sense of self-reliance and competence in young people, and that can't be a bad thing.
As regards the case of Physics, Maths, Chemistry, Biology etc. (I'm old enough never to have studied a subject called "science" at school), well you'll need those if you go on to higher education, but you'll not really get enough depth at school to get any real use out of them otherwise; mostly, in the modern world, they are used as signifiers that an individual is on a certain place on the smartness scale.
I would be inclined to view the teaching of programming computers as straddling the vocational and essential areas here. Let's face it, the world now runs on software and anything which encourages more contributors, as opposed to consumers, is IMHO a good thing. If we are going to inflict computers on young people, better to show them that they (the computers!) are tools, and how these tools work. We would never have done otherwise with say, a chisel or a plane; to do with computers is at best a waste of time and at worst a totally squandered opportunity.
My $0.02 anyway

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[History's Coming To]

You may well have a point with the "BBC Micro" generation now hitting the age of influence. The project needs to be restarted I think, give all the kids a Raspberry Pi or similar to use. The whole thing reminds me of Ender's Game, where the kids were encouraged to hack each other's computers and build their own security systems to stop the others...stop being terrified of them "breaking the computer" and you might find they work out how to fix it in the long run.

It was telling that the number one comment on a BBC article was from a head teacher demanding to know how we were going to pay for the "top of the range computers and iPads we'll need if we're going to teach programming" (I paraphrase).

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately most schools do not offer any form of programming or "computing" classes. The best way to get people interested in programming is to teach them at a young age and very few schools will bother unless they are forced to.

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[chilvence]

Maybe offer programming as an alternative to having to take a foreign language (why is that mandatory anyway?).

Argh!

Alright then, why is History mandatory? Why is Art mandatory? Why should everyone have to take design and technology classes? Why the hell is school mandatory at all?

God forbid anyone should HAVE to learn anything but English, the greatest language the world has ever known and the only language any of them filthy bloody foreigners should ever need!

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[John Courtland]

So then you have to learn more and step up your game. We need to stop making careers out of copying cells from Excel to Access and running compact and repair.

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[SJHillman]

Well, I've used history, math and the vast majority of science in day-to-day life. Even a (small) portion of the art classes have come in useful, as has phys-ed, health and most other classes I took in school. I know very few people who don't interact with computers or basic shop tools either at home or at work once in a while. However, I have never once needed French, Spanish, Chinese or Latin for anything. That's where I draw the line... stuff that will actually be used vs stuff that the majority of people won't use - and the few that do would have learned it on their own anyway. I don't think I should have to learn languages other than English because I don't use languages other than English - not because it's somehow superior.

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[Anonymous Coward]

Having a programmer available is not always an option. Knowing a little bit, especially with having access to things like Java and Visual Basic in the workplace can go a long way to automating simple functions that only require a few lines of code.

I am not a programmer, but I get into it every now and then for various projects at work, it's made my life easier and saved me quite a bit of time. Is it required for my job? No. Does it help? Yes.

I would also argue that the procedural nature of programming is also good backround for breaking down non-programming related tasks as well, though I have no data to back that up.

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[Anonymous Coward]

When I went to school the only options were French and German. Given that I never intend to go to either of these countries I don't see the point of learning their language. Even if you did want the learn the language, phrases explaining what is in your pencil case are not the most useful things to know.

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory

[jc79]

What does EU membership have to do with being able to speak the languages of our neighbours and trading partners? The two issues are orthogonal.

Nice idea but...

[jholyhead]

It's a great idea, but the execution is the only thing that matters and I just don't see them pulling it off. Who is going to teach these kids programming? When I was at school most of my teachers didn't have a Computer Science background at all, I think the most common degree subject was Business Studies. How many business graduates are going to be able to teach programming beyond having the students copy code out of a textbook?

If I thought this would actually happen as described, it would almost be enough to make me consider a career in teaching. Good job I know better.

Re:Nice idea but...

[Nursie]

When I was at school the chemistry teacher was just starting to investigate RASMOL and various computer tools, and admitted to having done a bit of fortran in the past. I also know maths teachers now who have an engineering and computer science background. Maybe this is semi-common?

The computing teacher at our school, OTOH, she knew how to make words curve around a circle and how to pick a fill colour in some DTP package on an Archimedes. Thrilling....

Re:Nice idea but...

[jholyhead]

I have no problem with Engineers becoming maths teachers because the core of Engineering is math.

I think the problem with IT and Computing is that if you're good, there is no economic reason to go into teaching. Junior IT support roles routinely start at higher salaries than qualified teachers. Why would I hang up my developers hat to go and teach 11 year olds about strings and CPU scheduling? Will they pay me more for knowing what I'm doing? Of course not. So you'll continue to have the psychology and business graduates teach IT classes, except now they'll be teaching kids things that they can't do themselves.

It's a disaster in the making, but the bar is set so low that they might as well try.

Re:Nice idea but...

[RogueyWon]

I went to an (otherwise excellent) private school in the UK, in the early/mid 1990s. What was striking at the time was how much worse the quality of the IT teaching was compared to that in other subjects. For most of my time there, IT (which was only mandatory from ages 11-13) was taught by an elderly priest with no computing knowledge, following a script sent out by some course provider.

While I'm sure we were well below the level of many slashdotters, my friends and I were significantly more computer literate than him. We'd been messing around with DOS, clearing up EMS and conventional memory to get our games to run for years (a couple of years later, we'd be enthusiastically pulling together Doom .wads and Duke Nukem 3d mods). Despite being among the "good kids" in the school in behavioural terms 99% of the time, we ended up so bored in those lessons (while he tried to teach basic word processing) that we ended up causing all kinds of havoc on the school PCs (completely undetected) and disrupting lessons no end (all while looking innocent and helpful).

When I went into the sixth form (16-18, for the benefit of non-UK readers), they got somebody in "from industry" to teach IT - and made a once-weekly half-hour IT class mandatory for everybody. Of course, the guy they'd got in "from industry" turned out to have been a factory floor manager in a PC assembly plant. He knew no more about the subject he was supposed to be teaching than the priest. The lessons came down to him reading instructions from a printed script (again provided by some faceless course-provision company) on how to create Word and Powerpoint documents. By this point my friends and I had brushed up our skills no end and were capable of causing even more creative havoc (again, always undetected).

Things may have improved since then, but there was a long way to go from a position where a school that would have been comfortably among the top 10% in the UK didn't even know the skills it needed in an IT teacher, let alone how to design a curriculum.

Re:Nice idea but...

[Nursie]

Well my friend who does the maths teaching, despite degrees in Mech Eng and Comp Sci (and now a PGCE as well) just didn't really get on in the corporate world. Teaching is the family business (his folks were teachers at our school), he got good grades when he was at school, good degrees and he seems to enjoy it... Economics don't seem to figure too much in his life-decision making thoughts.

You and I may not hang up our developers hats, and he may not have a huge amount of commercial programming experience, but neither of those things mean kids (in at least that school) couldn't get a good intro to programming.

Re:Nice idea but...

[jholyhead]

Well it hadn't improved between 1996-2003 .

Re:Nice idea but...

[jholyhead]

Except no school in its right mind is going to take a good maths teacher out of the maths department. Business graduates can fake ICT knowledge, but they can't fake Maths.

Re:Nice idea but...

[vlm]

Junior IT support roles routinely start at higher salaries than qualified teachers.

The Inflation Adjusted pay slope/1st derivative is zero to negative for IT support or weakly positive if you are in the minority who get promotions. The union teaching contract has a strong positive slope, every year you get "X" percent more. The crossover point is pretty locality specific but generally by the time you have kids of your own the teachers are making more than the IT people. Also ageism means your IT career will be shorter than a NFL quarterback's career, but teachers can and do teach until retirement age. If you factor in having to work at Walmart from 35 to 65 for IT workers, suddenly teachers come out far ahead in lifetime earnings. Its a cruddy job and they earn every penny, from what I've seen.

Will they pay me more for knowing what I'm doing? Of course not.

Actually, yes, they will, and they'll reimburse you for your education expenses too. The details depend on your local union contract, I suppose in the slums you might not get a good deal, but the bottom 10% of all jobs across all categories suck, so I don't think that proves anything.

Where do you get these weird ideas about teachers and pay? I have a few in my family, and you seem almost trollishly opposite of reality.

Re:Nice idea but...

[Nursie]

Well it's true that maths teachers are in short supply, but proper programming knowledge can no more be faked than the maths stuff. And no less - you could get a numpty with a script to teach maths to younger kids too.

Meh, you raise some good points, I think I raise others. We'll probably just have to wait and see, but I have no great hopes for the English educational systems to do it well either.

Re:Nice idea but...

[jholyhead]

Really? Because the teachers in my family are all paid a lot less than I am and their salary scale tops out at less than my salary. If they want to get on parity with me, they have to stop teaching and start managing. Are you even British? Your reference to NFL and Walmart suggests not, which means you're comparing apples to oranges.

Re:Nice idea but...

[jholyhead]

I think if I had to choose, I'd put my eggs in the Maths basket. Without maths, you can't really do computer science anyway.

Re:Nice idea but...

[Anonymous Coward]

Remarkably and Oddly, I also went to a well respected private school in the 90's and coincidentally, while there was a technology department that taught other areas in technology very well (technical drawing was branded as design and communication, metal and woodwork was rebranded as design and realisation and electronics were rebranded as design and technology) ICT was still taught by the school vicar, The Reverend Hulme.

I'm guessing that this is because his religious studies classes left him with a lot of free time and he wasn't qualified to teach Latin/Maths/English etc, etc (oddly most of our PE department were qualified to teach Maths otherwise I guess they would have been Teaching IT with thier physio qualification from Trent Poly or some such).

Likewise, My friends and I were technically literate and used the IT lessons to dick about causing havoc as frankly learning how to flood fill in paint was beneath us and a few years of Spectrum ownership had made mavis beacon's typing tutorial unnecessary.

By the fifth year (Year 11?), three of us had decided to take city and guilds qualifications in C outside of the school at an FE college as it was the only way to learn any thing decent.

Re:Nice idea but...

[randomlogin]

It's a great idea, but the execution is the only thing that matters and I just don't see them pulling it off. Who is going to teach these kids programming?

The kids can teach themselves. That may seem like a rather flippant comment, but I was impressed that Gove was aware of and referenced Scratch. One of the nice things about Scratch is that it comes with a whole bunch of 'self directed' learning materials which encourage hands on learning. It means you don't need a teacher with a C.S. degree to run an introductory programming course, just one who is sufficiently technically literate to get to grips with Scratch themselves.

Re:Nice idea but...

[delinear]

This is the worrying part. Apparently it will be down to schools and local businesses. That sounds an awful lot like businesses sending out programmers who aren't necessarily great teachers (hell, who aren't necessarily great programmers) to assist teachers who are following a scripted lesson plan. That doesn't sound like a fantastic recipe for success, much as I think the idea in general is a good one. You'd hope they would seek out proper teachers with a programming background, but given the relatively poor pay of teachers and the relatively good pay of programmers, and austerity measures ruling out hiring experts, I'm not entirely hopeful.

Re:Nice idea but...

[Nursie]

I also went to a (minor but) well respected private school in the 90's... there are a few of us about it seems!

Our ICT was taught by a Mrs Kettle (IIRC?) who didn't do much else. She may have been admin staff or a secretary. It was grindingly dull and didn't teach me a thing about programming or computers or... well anything apart from that you could write documents on a computer, which I already knew.

Somehow I never connected it to programming my C64 in my younger years, or programming my graphics calculator, or anything. I didn't really even know that software was a thing you could do as a career. Hell, probably didn't even really know what software was other than games that came on disks you could copy...

Maybe it's the traditional aspect of the schools that we went to that led them to ignore proper computer education. I have a fine GCSE in Latin, mind!

Re:Nice idea but...

[steveking]

It has in some schools; I teach at a state school in England. My GCSE computing class are about to have to do have to figure out how to do divide and multiplication in the Little Man Computer, and my A level courseworks are all either php/mysql or python/mysql based projects. I have been teaching Scratch to 11 year olds for a few years (Gove's master plan is that we should be doing that... er, I already am), and my year 9 (13/14year olds) can do basic Python programming.
Just don't ask me about my ICT exam classes, they are dull as dishwater.

Re:Nice idea but...

[jc79]

Or maybe the programmers from local businesses (who know how to code) will collaborate with the teachers (who know how to teach) to produce and deliver interesting and worthwhile lesson plans? Not much point otherwise.

Re:Nice idea but...

[Anonymous Coward]

If you can get your head around latin, programming is easy!

Seriously, the same concept of elegantly expressing meaning in compact sentences carries across both subjects.

Pixel function multiplies interest in programming

[Twinbee]

I hope that the plot(x,y,r,g,b) function is featured as part of their lessons, because that can easily multiply a student's interest by a factor of 10.

There's nothing quite like being able to control any part of the screen. When I started off on the ZX spectrum, I was just drawing dots, lines and circles. And it looked rubbish, but it felt amazing, especially when animation came into play. Today, I'm doing more this kind of stuff, but at the heart of it is the plot(x,y,r,g,b) function.

It's all in the implimentation

[Karmashock]

If this is well done then it will be great. If not, then it will be a disaster.

So... here's hoping they don't cock it up.

Re:It's all in the implimentation

[Anonymous Coward]

Nah, really i's all in the spelling.

Re:It's all in the implimentation

[Anonymous Coward]

They got it right in the UK in the late 80s and early 90s, no reason why they can't do it again 20 years on.

Re:It's all in the implimentation

[Darinbob]

And it needs to be "real" computer science. It should NOT be beginning programming! Computer science is not the same as programming. It should not be about creating a cool web page, or using a scripting language, etc. If you're going to teach CS at a young age then you want to instill some core principles; boolean algebra, algorithms (such as sort or search for beginners), computer architecture (yes, hardware dammit, logic gates), and basic programming in a lower level language (learn some recursion, build up a linked list yourself, don't just glue components together). Start at the bottom and work your way up so that these students actually understand it, in the same way that you teach arithmetic before you hand out the calculators.

Re:It's all in the implimentation

[Nursie]

No, it really doesn't.

That's what the formal GCSE and A-Level courses are for, this is an intro into IT and some basic programming fits in there nicely.

Boring 11 year-olds with explanations of CMOS is not a great place to start.

Re:It's all in the implimentation

[Darinbob]

Checking out wikipedia, it seems GCSE and A-levels are about the age when you should teach this stuff. Earlier than this age why are children being taught anything about computers really? Especially if the person teaching it is going to dumb it all down to the point where the student has to be untaught later on.

I wasn't suggesting CMOS. But boolean algebra should be step 1 no matter where you go. AND and OR and NOT gates don't require knowing CMOS, but are fundamental concepts probably worth knowing before you even do "Hello World".

My big concern though was mostly that student not be taught "IT" because it is too limiting. Don't even teach them "programming" if that's all that's done. Teach them "computer science" instead. It's much easier to build on the basics once learned than to try and teach the basics later after they've learned only a bird's eye view. Educate the students instead of just churning out a labor force, and just like all other subjects this means learning stuff that may never actually be used in later life.

Re:It's all in the implimentation

[Nursie]

Earlier than this age why are children being taught anything about computers really?

Because they're all around them, and the kids are likely using them already.

Especially if the person teaching it is going to dumb it all down to the point where the student has to be untaught later on.

Why would anything have to be untaught? Learning languages and frameworks aren't really like teaching kids about fundamental particles and then later having to explain wave/particle duality and probability clouds, IMHO.

I wasn't suggesting CMOS. But boolean algebra should be step 1 no matter where you go. AND and OR and NOT gates don't require knowing CMOS, but are fundamental concepts probably worth knowing before you even do "Hello World".

I respectfully disagree.

Sure, it becomes part of it when you teach the *why* of it, but a hands on intro is going to get far more kids actually interested. Basic chemistry was much the same. Do some experiments on iron and sulphur, then heat them together to get a reaction and repeat the experiments. Afterwards we'll talk about why and how.

Educate the students instead of just churning out a labor force, and just like all other subjects this means learning stuff that may never actually be used in later life.

I absolutely agree, but I disagree with your way to get there. Starting out computer science as a dry, boring, theoretical subject is the best possible way to turn kids off it.

Wrong sponsors

[vlm]

can the new system break away from the old product-centric regime when it will apparently be sponsored by companies including Google and Microsoft?

Sponsors are fine. The correct sponsors for a programming curriculum are my personal favorites microchip.com and xilinx.com, not The Mighty GOOG and MS. Give the kids a Spartan-3 FPGA starter kit, a PIC32MX1 starter kit, and a whole lot of tabs of acid, or at least 2 of the 3, and they'll do just fine.

Note that a "real CS curriculum" is a lot of discrete math and database theory (Codd normal forms, etc) so about 50% to 75% of a real CS curriculum just needs a whiteboard, no hardware, and optionally a box set of Knuth. This confuses the hell of out people who can't tell the difference between IT and CS, just like its easy to confuse the hell out of people who can't tell the difference between education and training.

Re:Wrong sponsors

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a lot more to CS than relational database theory (actually, there's not too much theory involved in databases at that level; maybe if you go into replication things get moderately interesting from a theoretical and technical perspective) and algorithms and their complexity. Relational DB sutff is an old hat by now. It's concurrency theory (i.e. multicore etc.) and realtime/hybrid stuff (i.e. embedded systems) where the challenges of the future lie, but that's probably too hard. Instead of boring people to death with databases, teach them some logic. At least that's something that can be useful outside of CS.

Re:Wrong sponsors

[vlm]

Well, yeah, I agree, but I'm not going to list every class I took for my CS degree. That was just the first one that sprang to mind that didn't require higher math.

I think you're going to have serious issues teaching something like statistical OS scheduling/queuing theory or numerical analysis of sorting algorithm efficiency to schoolkids, but relational databases are a pretty good match to anyone older than, I donno, ten or something. I'm not sure why codd-normal-forms have to be taught at age 22 in a senior level CS class instead of much earlier in life... The sad fact is anyone working in business knows that way too many non-CS non-IT people implement their own database systems using Excel, Word, etc, with utterly horrific design instead of even half way attempt at a real design...

An interesting relatively non-higher math class that kids could probably handle would be a comparative study of programming paradigms. Simple procedural, functional, automata, object oriented, recursive, theres plenty out there. This would teach different ways of thinking about problems. Not just "writing a program" problems, but problem solving in general...

Re:no reason why not

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't see it as any different from a foundation in algebra , geometry etc which I presume they will all do.
Those who find a natural aptitude for it will then, as you say, seek out further development & progress.
Those who don't have just learned some basic logic.

I don't hold much hope

[Anonymous Coward]

My ICT lessons at school 97 - 02 consisted of how to use Microsoft office, how to type but mostly (like 90% of my lessons) it was how to draw with the turtle in LOGO. I always wanted to get into programming but no one was around to show me how. I welcome this change but without teaching staff who understand the very basics of a subject we are still going to have 16 year olds drawing squares and circles and not understanding why.

England, not Britain

[Anonymous Coward]

Gove is the Education secretary for England not Britain. Wales and Scotland have devolved powers on education and therefore their own education ministers (Leighton Andrews AM and Michael Russell MSP, respectively)

England != Britain, Britain != England.

Re:England, not Britain

[ledow]

If you cannot understand that the:

United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

is different to:

Great Britain

which itself is composed of:

England, Scotland and Wales

then there are a vast number of ways to go wrong.

Unfortunately, most foreigners get them all confused all the time (especially annoying when they confuse the UK for the others - does "United Kingdom" not suggest something, in the same way that "United States" is made up on lots of states?). Every time they do this, I refer to Texas as a country and Seattle as a state. If they don't realise their error from there, walk away.

Don't even get me started on counties, either....

Re:England, not Britain

[Anonymous Coward]

But Texas is a country. At least that's what Texans keep telling me.

Re:England, not Britain

[Anonymous Coward]

Is Britain == Great Britain? Great Britain is England, Scotland & Wales, while Britain == UK. Great Britain + Ireland == British Isles

Re:England, not Britain

[jc79]

Roughly half the population of Northern ireland would object to being called "British". It is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, but not all UK subjects (unfortunately not yet citizens - maybe that will change when Liz finally pops her clogs) are British or live in Britiain.

There are also a lot more islands in our archipelago (the British Isles) than Great Britain and Ireland. Residents of the Isle of Man live on a British Isle but are Manx, not British. Residents of the Isle of Harris (on the same island as the Isle of Lewis) are UK subjects and are British (or Scottish) but don't live in Great Britain.

In a couple of years there will be a referendum on Scottish independence (or perhaps greater devolution). If Scotland becomes independent then Scots will not be British but most will still live in Great Britain, but not the United Kingdom of (a bit of) Great Britain and Northern Ireland. There may be some renaming involved.

I hope that's clarified things for you.

Re:England, not Britain

[Anonymous Coward]

Next, let's move on to the fun question of who should qualify as Scottish for the purposes of the independence referendum, given there's no such thing (yet) as Scottish nationality.... :)

And not before time!

[asdf7890]

And not before time!

Though please don't rush overly on my account Mr Gove: one of the advantages of the current system from my PoV is that it wasn't training up any young enthusiastic replacements for me, so I might be able to keep my career moving when I get old(er) and (more) belligerent!

Re:no reason why not

[elrous0]

Programming is not a fundamental skill in the same sense that mathematics, English, etc. are. It's a specific vocational skill. Sure you can learn some underlying skills from it, in the same way that you can learn underlying skills from any vocational training. You can learn some logic from a mandatory programming class, some physics from a mandatory engineering class, some fluid dynamics from a mandatory mechanic class, some geometry from a mandatory carpentry class, etc. But none of those are going to make you into a programmer, engineer, mechanic, or carpenter.

Re:Pixel function multiplies interest in programmi

[Anonymous Coward]

most people don't get a woody when something happens because they pushed a button

Can, but will?

[djchristensen]

but can the new system break away from the old product-centric regime when it will apparently be sponsored by companies including Google and Microsoft?"

Yes, it can, but whether it will or not is probably an open question, especially on Microsoft's part. Both Google and Microsoft have a vested interest in creating the software developers of the future, but I can see Microsoft having a hard time not trying to use the opportunity to create more Microsoft product users at the same time.

Re:Can, but will?

[mrsmiggs]

No doubt Microsoft indoctrination classes will continue but from age 11 to 24 I think I got introductory classes to Word, Excel, Access etc about 5 or 6 times. Each tediously going over the same things we were taught at the previous attempt as there isn't really that much to teach and we'd forgotten everything as we didn't use them outside the classroom and it was duller than dull. You only need that twice; once to allow you to write essays for other subjects and when they're about to kick you out in the 'real world'. The lack imagination in the ICT curriculum in UK has been staggering for the past decade holding non-geeks back and being studiously avoided by anyone who knew anything about computers. No doubt Microsoft will try and shoe horn in their own technologies but who cares anything is better than 10 years of powerpoint lessons.

"Open source"

[Anonymous Coward]

I saw an alarming reference to this initiative as "open source", using the words entirely differently from their usual meaning. Doesn't bode well . . .

Re:Pixel function multiplies interest in programmi

[s_p_oneil]

I like to think it depends on what device the button is connected to.

Scratch

[gmuslera]

Included with the OLPC computers for children was Scratch, referenced in the article. Even Google App Inventor for android was based on it. For me looked lgreat, something that even a primary school children could use to do from very small to somewhat complex things. Also included are turtle art, a logo interpreter (simpler, but is so close scratch to it that not sure if worth teaching it) and a python interpreter (but it should be for more advanced/grown up childrens). Something like this should be adopted in schools, not particulary to teach about computing and programming, but on thinking, solving problems in ordered ways.

Re:no reason why not

[vlm]

But none of those are going to make you into a programmer, engineer, mechanic, or carpenter.

LOL of course they do. A novice/noob/junior/apprentice programmer, engineer, mechanic, or carpenter, obviously. Just for laughs, if proven ability to do, doesn't define a persons skillset, then what in your opinion does define a persons skillset? LOL.

Re:Pixel function multiplies interest in programmi

[Hooya]

I had the exact same feeling and I was on a ZX spectrum too! It was awesome changing one little variable to change the colors in a for loop etc.. you're absolutely right, that really got me hooked on programming.

There is no framework for this to work

[cmonkey_1973]

The vast majority of UK teachers "delivering ICT curriculum" are late-middle aged business studies teachers only capable of showing kids where the bold button is and this is the fundamental problem.

Even that phrase should terrify you - they deliver the curriculum (i.e. hand out workbooks) and then patrol the shop floor for slackers and the curriculum is "ICT". Something so divorced from real computing its got its own TLA that only really exists in education.

There are exceptions of course, real geeks with a passion for the subject trying to push the boundaries, but the fact that the ones driving this forward seem to be totally unaware of them just makes the whole thing look even worse:

"we could have 11-year-olds able to write simple 2D computer animations"
We already do - and more, Kodu , Alice, Muvizu and thats just the free ones I can think of off the top of my head.

I've been to conferences filled with these people bemoaning the death of computing and asking "what's gone wrong". They've usually even got one of the innovators doing a "look what I'm doing with the kids!" presentation that's lapped up by the audience. Not one of them takes it any further.

Re:Pixel function multiplies interest in programmi

[s_p_oneil]

I agree, but it's even better to give them a basic set of 2D primitives (point, line, rect, oval, poly, text, textured sprite) and a range of music and sound effects. Let them play with their own sprite textures, animate them, move them around on the screen, and play silly sound effects. Some of them will be creating their own silly graphics demos or side-scrollers in no time.

Re:Pixel function multiplies interest in programmi

[hughbar]

I agree about the 'control' aspect. I taught my son in about 1988: 10 print "hello" ; 20 goto 10 ; [as one does or did then] just the stupidity + the power [because computers are basically leverage of some kind] was very attractive. These are things that you can do immediately, control the machine. So graphics, logo, messing around, mindstorms will probably be attractive to many, even those that can't deal with discrete math etc. etc.

Also, if the policy and schools are actually intelligent, peering learning: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_by_teaching#Peer_Learning_and_Teaching_in_Higher_Education can play a big part in this, that's how most professionals and open source people expand their range, they look at other people's stuff, get help, ask questions and, above all, explain to others [meaning that they explain to themselves].

Re:Pixel function multiplies interest in programmi

[Twinbee]

Indeed - what I would've done for a faster plot or circle function back then :)

And we mustn't forget about sound too. Just instead of the x and y, we have time and volume/pressure, which can of course be represented by the x and y again. I was in awe when I realized I could 'draw' the wave of a sound with simple maths and have it played back (that was on the Amiga and in AMOS). Some surprisingly effective sounds can be created using very little knowledge of maths and sheer experimentation.

Re:no reason why not

[umghhh]

I suppose some basic level of programming say scripting may be useful. Today there is almost no job (in the west) that does not involve some sort of data processing and tasks involving data processing devices which can be simplified by use of said scripting. This and some basic statistics so that the kids have basic foundations for intelligent ignoring of nonsense pumped into our brains by media, politicians etc.

5 Raspberry Pi articles in 5 days

[Anonymous Coward]

Why slashdot is using known marketing techniques to hammer this product on our collective minds? you are friends with one of the founders? well FUCK Raspberry PI, maybe it was a very good product but now I wont touch it, because I dont want things jammered in my mind.

Besides there are hundreds of similar project, but none of you know about it right?

Re:5 Raspberry Pi articles in 5 days

[Crookdotter]

I agree with the reposting, but not with the reason and the anger. There is a buzz around it - they aren't selling at a profit really. People are just excited about this product. If you know of other projects that are as good or better, submit them. I for one want to hear about them as well. But lay off the R Pi AC, it's looking good so far!

Re:5 Raspberry Pi articles in 5 days

[Lincolnshire Poacher]

> There is a buzz around it - they aren't selling at a profit really.

Yes, yes they are. They have explicitly said that they are assembling in China so that they make a margin on each unit sold for future R&D. Just because they are a charity does not mean that they do not want to make a profit.

Anyway, once a school factors-in a TV to be connected to each Pi then it's not such a bargain.

Other projects, as requested: Bifferboard and Beagleboard. Both longer-established and actually in production. Bifferboard costs the same as Raspberry Pi Model B.

Re:5 Raspberry Pi articles in 5 days

[Anonymous Coward]

With a measly 150mhz 486sx , 32 megs of RAM, no SD card slot, no HDMI, no I2C, no SPI, etc... there is no comparison between the Bifferboard and RPi yet they cost the same. That's why people are so excited about RPi. The closest thing is the BeagleBone which has a better CPU but costs 2-3 times as much.

Re:5 Raspberry Pi articles in 5 days

[Anonymous Coward]

Can you play 1080p video on the Bifferboard? I don't think so.

Re:5 Raspberry Pi articles in 5 days

[Anonymous Coward]

> Can you play 1080p video on the Bifferboard?

Not really needed for teaching kids programming, methinks...

Re:5 Raspberry Pi articles in 5 days

[petermgreen]

Other projects, as requested: Bifferboard [bifferos.co.uk] and Beagleboard [beagleboard.org]. Both longer-established and actually in production. Bifferboard costs the same as Raspberry Pi Model B.

Essentially with the Pi you are getting a device with specs comparable to the beableboard but a price comparable to (probablly lower than but we won't know for sure until we see final shipped prices from the Pi guys) the bifferboard.

Re:5 Raspberry Pi articles in 5 days

[jc79]

No, it is not profit. It is income. If it were profit, it would be distributed to the shareholders. As they are a non-profit making charity, they have to spend their income on furthering their charitable goals, not making their investors rich.

What company says "we spent our profits on R&D"? They say "we cut R&D costs to make more profit". See the difference? Profit is what you have left over after you have covered all of your business costs.

It's entirely reasonable for the Rasberry Pi foundation to want to cover their manufacturing costs and get some extra income from each unit in order to be able to produce more than one batch of devices without running out of money (which would severely impact on their aims as a charity).

Re:5 Raspberry Pi articles in 5 days

[Crookdotter]

Well yes but a few quid, if that, is justifiable to put back into the foundation. That was the 'really' part of my reply. My point was that a few articles on /. don't deserve to blanket refuse to get one of these exciting devices, even if there are alternatives out there.

Where will the teachers come from?

[fantomas]

Nice idea, but are you going to find X thousand teachers capable of teaching programming by September? or be able to *properly* train the current ones?

I assume if they are working up the new curriculum now, it will be ready in a couple of months (if you're lucky), which gives you about 3 months to distribute the curriculum to schools before they all go off on their summer holidays. 12 weeks then to get the teachers up to speed on the new courses.

I am not saying it's impossible - teachers are amazing, and incredibly dedicated. But declaring you're going to teach something which isn't currently being taught has a lead in time to get the schools up to speed. Or expect the teachers to work their evenings and weekends on an extra unpaid task (which will mean you will get highly variable results).

Unless of course you throw a major company like Microsoft or Google a blank cheque, tell em to take as much money as they want and give you a bunch of passwords to some website (probably based on a foreign country's curriculum, e.g. USA, which might not align with the UK curricula) and get your students to drag themselves through some automated lessons.

I think its political rhetoric. It can be done, and it would be cool to give some students programming skills, but I think it will take more than a few months to change the education system for a whole country and retrain the teachers.

Re:Where will the teachers come from?

[91degrees]

Well, I guess a lot of it can be done from worksheets. This is what we did with the BBC Micros when I was at school.

There are other problems as well though. You already mentioned the curriculum? What language? Is the computer equipment up to the task? Solvable problems, but getting it done by September is a challenge

Re:Where will the teachers come from?

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice idea, but are you going to find X thousand teachers capable of teaching programming by September? or be able to *properly* train the current ones?

As always, trivial "facts" like that are irrelevant to the bureaucrats and administrators that came up with this Great Idea.

Re:Where will the teachers come from?

[unixisc]

Good point. As I mention in another post below, people who can teach programming languages are probably good enough to get hired for a lot more by companies that need software developed. Even if a whole horde of programmers just appeared today, they'd be lapped up by companies before schools could even approach them.

I'm an ICT teacher....

[Crookdotter]

I'm an ICT teacher who was roped into doing it (I'm 70% science, chem/phys, 30% ICT now). It has almost exclusively been excel and powerpoint training which is deadly dull. I enjoy programming in my spare time but nothing extensive (BASIC on the speccy, then VB when I got a PC, and am getting into C with the use and help of my Arduino). I also do CGI, with PS, modeling, animation, etc etc as well as HTML, flash coding and just about any other bits n peices I come across

For so long ICT has been MS based. There are some exceptions - scratch is a simple programming language that is used in a small way for example. I doubt the capability of ICT teachers with programming and CS. I mean, I do electronics and programming as a hobby but do I have the extensive knowledge to teach it right? Unsure, but I bet I could punch through it. Other ICT teachers I'm not so sure about. I'm a fairly stereotypical geek with some social ability.

If you're a decent coder and EE, why would you go into teaching? From the sciences (like me) I can understand - very low pay, low reward to work ratio. You'd do it for the love of it. If you're a decent coder you should be coding I'd say. I don't think we have the body of people to teach it in this country.

But I hope it does change and I get to have a crack at it!

Re:I'm an ICT teacher....

[Svartalf]

But I hope it does change and I get to have a crack at it!

Heh... End of month, possibly first part of next, the hackers get a crack at the Raspberry PI's to start forming some of the concepts and possibly even helping form some of the advanced concept portions of an ICT/beginning college curriculum with the R-Pi (Some are contemplating GPGPU ideas and others are thinking cluster computing and similar as a teaching the concepts idea...I'm part of the clustering crowd over in their forums. It's not going to make a blazing cluster without something GPGPU to tie into the fairly powerful mobile GPU as a co-processor- but it's going to be able to allow people to understand how varying cluster models work and be able to tinker with them on the cheap.) I'm hoping that the R-Pi Foundation does succeed. It's a win for as many as that takes this, what is basically a gift to the world, and runs with it.

Re:I'm an ICT teacher....

[Hentes]

The majority of students won't become programmers but office biobots in which case this knowledge comes very handy. There is a need to teach the use of office software to people who are not technically-minded enough to figure it out. So I won't say it's useless, it's just not a substitute for an IT course.

As for finding teachers, the payment is a big issue, the industry pays far more than a school will. But I've seen a solution in some schools where informatics teachers were also the sysadmins, thus receiving double pay.

Re:I'm an ICT teacher....

[Dr_Barnowl]

Many of the generation of programmers I'm in were self-taught.

At my school, we had no structured lessons involving computers, but we did have a computer lab packed with BBC Micros on a network (I went to a reasonably posh private school). My career is based on something I have zero formal schooling in - just the proclivity to muck about with computers, and the opportunity to do so. Couple that with computers that are sufficiently primitive that you are *forced* to learn stuff about them just to get them to do something interesting, and you have an environment where you can learn.

I believe the Raspberry Pi is trying to recreate these conditions but I'm not sure how successful it will be. This was a different era, when there were only four channels on television and about an hour or two of dedicated children's programming a day. Computers were both primitive AND expensive - the BBC Micro was £335 back then, about £1,100 in 2012 pounds, and you needed an extra TV if you weren't going to annoy your parents too much. But they were the most interesting thing around, which certainly contributed to their charm.

The Pi makes it cheap to obtain a powerful computer - but it's *already* cheap to obtain a powerful computer ; for just a shade under £400 I recently bought the family a Core i3 laptop with a full HD screen and 4GB of RAM. The lives of children are already filled with "boxes that go bing" ; adding one that has significantly less "bing" out of the box may just leave them nonplussed.

I'll still be getting one though, and "playing with it" in front of my daughter, if only for the sake of nostalgia.

Re:I'm an ICT teacher....

[tehcyder]

I think the problem now is that kids will expect to be able to produce high quality programmes (and apps) almost immediately. Getting a two colour version of Pong on the screen isn't going to cut it with most of them.

Re:I'm an ICT teacher....

[zigge]

I hope this initiative succeeds. However, given the pretty high salaries for coders in the UK, I find it hard to believe that *good* coders would be prepared to accept the salary of a novice teacher. Whether good coders would make good teachers is another debating point.

Re:I'm an ICT teacher....

[sarabob]

IMO the cool thing about the raspi is that you can just give one each to your kids. The laptop is still sufficiently expensive to be shared, and fixing it so the others can get to wikipedia for homework research is sufficiently annoying and time consuming to discourage too much messing about.

I gave my 6-year-old his own account on my macbook; within a week he had magically managed to change some font anti-aliasing option that affected all users. Took me hours to fix, he now has a completely locked-down account. I can give him a raspi of his own and if it breaks everyone can still use the family computer while he uses his sister's raspi to automatically reimage the OS on his SD card.

Most Important Lessons of All

[Anonymous Coward]

101: RTFM: How to Find an Answer All by Yourself by Reading Commonly Available Materials with No Handholding!

They can teach it along with a "how to take personal responsibility" class, a "how to show initiative class", and some basic reasoning.

Re:no reason why not

[Bert64]

In the same way that algebra is basically a vocational class...
Only basic levels of mathematics can be considered a fundamental skill... Most of what they teach will be of absolutely no use whatsoever to most people during their adult lives.

It *should* be mandatory

[gwolf]

An important part of school is exposing us to subjects we would not even consider otherwise, and give us the most basic concepts in them. As a programmer, of course, I thank for the 12 years worth of Mathematics I got, plus many concepts that were given to me in Physics, Chemistry... But I do not reject learning grammar, literature, history or biology. As many geeks (and unlike most of the rest) I hated physical education, but as an adult have to recognize its importance. We had several subjects, all of them mandatory, I would not properly know how to translate into English.

If you had the vocation to be a painter or a psychologist, would you sue the State for forcing you to spend 12 years of your life learning about an hour of every working day to mathematics? Do you think it's a waste to teach not only the numbers and basic arithmetic, but the basis of abstraction, probability, etc.? I know I could perfectly live without knowing the basics of Mexican history, but my understanding of the society that surrounds me would be much impaired.

Like mathematics, programming shows a different way of thinking, and is probably the most efficient way to get kids to understand some mental processes. I have long argued for the need of such a move, and hope many other countries follow the UK's lead. Come to think of it, were it not for learning Logo at school at age 10, I could have never discovered my vocation.

Re:no reason why not

[Anne Thwacks]

Programming is not a fundamental skill in the same sense that mathematics, English, etc. are.

No, but it stands a good chance of teaching pupils how to give and receive instructions. There is a major problem in the UK with school leavers who cannot follow simple instructions like "open the text book and turn to page 10" - they will open some other book, or turn to some other page, or do something else entirely. This makes them unemployable - hence the need to import a large number of Polish workers to do menial tasks.

I failed as a high school teacher back then...

[gwolf]

I got my first job teaching computing in a high school, for the 15-18 year old groups. And yes, I probably got that job because the school's administration thought it was a dummy subject: I was 20 year old by then, and had absolutely no knowledge on how to stand in front of a group of 20 bored kids and keep their attention. That was, yes, the main reason that made me fail as a teacher.

However, there is another important reason: I was told to teach them Office software. The problem was, I was only mildly familiar with it. Yes, I had done some nice stuff with a word processor - but my Excel knowledge was very low. And it took me quite a bit to understand what was Powerpoint all about.

Yes, today we have loads of Office teachers. But they came from *somewhere*, didn't they? And if the curriculum changes, probably it will not be them who are best suited to teach - They might be better off as office assistants as a general case. There are people with qualifications needed to teach basic programming. Some of them might be frustrated current teachers trying to teach something more interesting than the way to color Excel cells.

Re:no reason why not

[Anonymous Coward]

Programming is not a fundamental skill in the same sense that mathematics, English, etc. are. It's a specific vocational skill.

I disagree. programming is a subset of mathematics. Teaching some basic programming along with some basic geometry and algebra in higher end required math courses is a good idea.

In a world where everyone has a computer with them at all times it's rather ridiculous that so much of society treats computers like magic and programming like witchcraft. Peeling back the veil and ensuring everyone has some basic computer science skills will go a long way to improving education in a modern world.

hypercard

[Ralph Spoilsport]

wherefore are thou?

Re:hypercard

[Anonymous Coward]

Wherefor art hypercard what? Wherefor art hypercard Romeo? Wherefor art hypercard hypercard? Wherefor art hypercard not here when we need it?

Re:hypercard

[TuringTest]

It's being reimplemented in the forn of the Semantic Web. It just doesn't have a proper GUI (yet).

Re:hypercard

[jc79]

Wherefore is not olde worlde speake for where. Wherefore is to therefore as where is to there.

Re:hypercard

[Ralph Spoilsport]

go read a book.

JULIET:
O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo?
Deny thy father and refuse thy name;
Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love,
And I'll no longer be a Capulet.

good enough for Shakespeare is good enough for me.

Re:hypercard

[Anonymous Coward]

go read a book.

JULIET:

O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo?

Deny thy father and refuse thy name;

Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love,

And I'll no longer be a Capulet.

good enough for Shakespeare is good enough for me.

That isnt intended to mean "Romeo, where are you?". It means "Why do you have to be Romeo" (IE - "Why do you have to be a Montegue?")

Re:hypercard

[jc79]

I can read books fine. Shakespeare knew exactly what he meant, which is not what you think. Read the last three lines you quoted and reflect on their meaning.

  "Wherefore art thou?" is not a query as to the whereabouts of Romeo, but a question that can be paraphrased as "Why do you have to be Romeo Montague instead of some other boy whose family is not conducting a deadly feud with mine."

Why else would she ask him to "deny thy father, and refuse thy name" and then offer to change her name from Capulet? If she's asking where the hell he's got to, all that name changing business is somewhat out of context.

Re:no reason why not

[Saintwolf]

The same way it's always been, you lie about prior employment in the field on your resumé...

Typical biased summary

[tehcyder]

Britain's schoolchildren have had compulsory ICT (information and communications technology) lessons for some time, but they are hated by staff and pupils alike

My kids have no problem with ICT lessons, but I don't think they'd have any particular interest in programming classes. Knowing how to use Word, Excel and PowerPoint may not be Computer Science, but at least it's useful across all disciplines. Most children are NOT going to be computer programmers when they grow up, whatever the fantasies of government or geeks.

Re:Typical biased summary

[Anonymous Coward]

What you've spectacularly failed to realise is that we need the people to write the future Word and Excel. Any Joe can learn Word in a hour or two and is generally considered to be low skilled (as opposed to the traditional subjects). Programming requires dedication that only an education can begin to provide as discipline in it is fundamental not just for programming but website coding, understanding computer errors, being able to use anything but a UI to automate tasks, just like maths is fundamental to working in a shop, ordering supplies, taking measurements...

Re:Typical biased summary

[ImprovOmega]

I'll put it another way. You could teach someone to read, pronounce words and sounding them out. If you stopped there and didn't get into grammar, sentence structure, parts of speech, paragraphs, and writing essays then you would be doing your children a great disservice.

It's similar with computers. You don't have to teach the kids how to write a modern multi-tasking operating system any more than you have to teach them how to write novels, but if you at least understand the mechanics of programming computers you have a solid workable foundation. Fundamental programming should be considered just as important as fundamental natural language writing skills. Nothing more than a first semester programming course: loops, branches, and basic I/O. That's it, but that's enough. Anything beyond is rather vocational, but it at least gives you an understanding of the logic of computers.

Re:Typical biased summary

[Crookdotter]

What you have failed to realise is that all these skills are done to death by the end of KS3. When they take the option of a GCSE in ICT then the work should of course reflect the desire to know more than just excel and powerpoint.

Re:no reason why not

[tehcyder]

If you can't follow and obey the logic behind "open the text book and turn to page 10" I really doubt you're going to get much benefit from a programming class.

Freetard FUD in summary

[Anonymous Coward]

""but can the new system break away from the old product-centric regime when it will apparently be sponsored by companies including Google and Microsoft?""

Programming should have its own schools

[unixisc]

It's good that they are teaching programming in schools. What grade do they start? And what languages do they start w/, and how do they evolve those? Like Basic @ Grade ___. then Fortran @ Grade ___, C @ Grade ____?

I actually think that there is a case for programming to have its own dedicated schools, just like dedicated disciplines such as music, and such institutions have different classes for different objectives and languages. Such schools should be primarily aimed @ kids who show an interest in programming - so I partly agree with the first poster in this thread that it shouldn't be mandatory.

Rather, such schools should have different sections - let's say one dedicated to Web programming, another to programming Applications, another for scripting and automation, and so on. Then within them, have different subjects for different languages, be it Basic, Fortran, Ada, C, C++, Objective-C, C#, Java, and anything else. That way, depending on what one goes to, one can develop skills in these, or in scripting languages like Javascript, CSS, REXX, Perl, PHP, et al. Once you have schools like this that have instructors who can teach these various languages, that helps kids understand the utility of each one of them, and decide which ones are the best to work with, and so on. At lower levels, one could use IDEs, while @ higher levels, one could learn how to program w/o them.

After a certain level of experience, students could then be taught about the internals of CPUs and lower level programming, be it in assembly or C. If more lower level languages come to the market, they can make use of those as well.

End result is that there would be a high population of people capable of writing all sorts of programs - and providing the software engineering talent that companies need. Only obstacle I see here is getting good instructors, since most of the good ones are probably working in companies where they'd be paid a lot more than what they could earn by teaching.

I dont know about the UK

[Osgeld]

But here in the US, I just argued with a teacher who is apparently so fucking stupid that the concept of plugging a PI into a TV is still something just out of their grasp, never mind managing software that didnt come installed on their office max HP

so programming? I sincerely hope the attitude over in the UK is much better, than it has been ever in the USA, as every single teacher I have ever dealt with in the sub college level is damn near retarded with technology of any form, from tape decks to pc's dumbed down so much a child could use it (but yet they struggle)

Re:I dont know about the UK

[Crookdotter]

I've heard about this stereotype of american teachers - don't know how true it is across the board though. In the UK, most teachers are pretty OK with using technology within their subjects. We have to be, as we register, take attendance file behaviour reports and followups on discipline etc all on the system with our laptops. We also use the internal network to place and deliver content for lessons, so most Uk teachers are up to speed on general computer use I'd say. Why is this so bad in the US? (if it is)

Re:I dont know about the UK

[Osgeld]

"Why is this so bad in the US? (if it is)"
contracts and unions

once your in the system its a short matter of time before your pretty much ensured that you will not loose your job unless you do a major screwup (ie sleep with a student, etc) once you hit 10 your guaranteed a job (unless you do a major screwup) until you retire

so therefore there is absolutely zero incentive to even try outside of a pay raise if you go and get a better degree, complementary of the US tax payer

Re:I dont know about the UK

[spiralx]

Because of course, there are no teacher's unions in the UK *rolls eyes*

This *should* be very good for the children

[BufferArea]

But it will probably be implemented in a way that won't. The computer programming should be able to enhance learning in other areas. They should use the programming in other classes, such as math and science, to put recently learned concepts to work. For example, teachers could assign a term project where students need to write a game that uses some physics concepts.

Additionally, this would test and strengthen skills that many are weak in - the ability to think logically and to devise and carry out a plan. Most of schooling really tests and enhances this shallowly, but writing a sufficiently complex program will truly exercise a student's mind in these areas.

If the programming is also taught as a tool to be used with other subjects, rather than a sole discipline that is divorced from the rest of schooling, then it truly could enhance education. But it will most likely be taught in such a way that programming will only ever be used in the programming class.

First grade in 1981 we learned BASIC on VIC 20s.

[Viewsonic]

It got me into computing, and I picked it up so fast that I became a mentor. We basically programmed out own little games.

In first grade. This was right after they were released in the USA. Public school system. Looking back it seems to be have been pretty progressive for the time. Beyond grades 3-5 we never did much of any computing as the industry sort of stuttered. When I got to middle school there was NO computing programs with the exception of Atari STs in the art classes. Of which I jumped at and it got me into 2d art, and eventually... I went to high school and convinced the art teachers to get Amiga for 3D design and art. Unfortunately, the budget didn't allow it, so I got to sit by myself on the sole Atari ST in the library doing "independent study on computers" which basically consisted me writing programs in pascal and playing video games.

Kind of sad it never really panned out beyond first grade.

Computer Knowledge Among Recent High School Grads

[Anonymous Coward]

I taught an Intermediate Algebra class at a community college this fall and was shocked at the level of computer knowledge among the students. I first asked them if they had any programming instruction in high school. One person out of 60 said yes. In 1995, one of my assignments in ENG 101 was to make a webpage...you know, the really pretty ones of that day. I truly believe that got me interested in programming which I do now in my job (although I finished with a math degree). So, I decided to spend one day doing a very basic intro to web programming. The idea of saving a file in one directory and referencing an image in another directory just about blew their minds. I was shocked! These are kids that graduated in the last 3 years! I'd like to think that the two hour class I gave them will prompt some of them to learn more about basic programming and find out what else is out there. Maybe I'm a pessimist but I'm guessing the ratio will still be one in 60.

By the way...one of the students told me, "I don't know anything about computers." WHAT?? I told him, "You can't say that unless you're over 35."

Pink Floyd

[ThatsNotPudding]

"How can you have your pudding unless you program a bubble sort?!!"

Think of the children!

[oldmac31310]

"Britain's schoolchildren have had compulsory ICT (information and communications technology) lessons for some time, but they are hated by staff and pupils alike..." - so why, oh why do the staff and pupils hate Britain's schoolchildren? Are they perhaps jealous of their ICT lessons?

The best way...

[Anonymous Coward]

The best way to teach a class of 30 tweens programming is to put them in a room with 30 Commodore 64s, 30 small color television sets, an incomplete and random smattering of the following: 1541-II drives, Users Guides, Programmers Guides, various expansion carts/software discs/manuals, some joysticks, koala pads, lightpens, the sheet music for Pachelbels Canon in D, a description of a module tracker and maybe a few random and incomplete code snippets, a couple CDs of chiptunes,

Now just stand back, remind then to eat once in a while, and it will take care of itself.

http://www.viceteam.org/ is an alternative too.

Thank goodness...

[Anonymous Coward]

When I did my GCSE in IT (as I had to), I hated it and it almost put me entirely off computers. I found out students at my school now have the choice between Computing and IT, and I think that's how it should be - if students are forced into something that they don't like (and there will be a lot of kids who can't stand programming as much as most hate IT), they just tend to be an annoyance to those geniunely interested.
Other than it's compulsary nature, the only thing that concerns me is that it may well end up Microsoft-oriented, and having pupils come out of school thinking that Visual Basic is the only worthwhile programming language, just as many think that Windows is the only worthwhile OS, or only knowing of Office.

Proprietary lock-in from Microsoft?

[thetoadwarrior]

Seriously, it sounds like a money grab by big companies while trying to convince kids there is nothing better to use. An army of visual studio .net developers are not something we need. What about kids that have Apple computers at home or even Linux?

The UK gov doesn't have a good reputation anyway with IT projects so I'm sure this will go wrong.

Re:no reason why not

[cheekyjohnson]

I don't see it as any different from a foundation in algebra , geometry etc

Neither do I. I don't believe those should be mandatory, either.

Those who don't have just learned some basic logic.

And I doubt there's any noticeable improvement. They'll likely forget whatever they learned if they don't use it or aren't interested, anyway.

Re:Pixel function multiplies interest in programmi

[jc79]

I learned about analogue sound synthesis from BBC BASIC's ENVELOPE and SOUND commands when I was 9 or 10.

Programming, you say?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Everyone I know works in IT."

WE RECOMMEND BRITISH IT FOR YOUR COMPANY.

(train cars seperate)

WE RECOMMEND SH IT FOR YOUR COMPANY.

Teach spreadsheets first

[Savantissimo]

"nobody's mind is going to be expanded by making PowerPoints"
True, but their minds will be expanded by learning how to fully use a spreadsheet program. It's by far the most widely practiced form of programming and beyond its applicability to exploring and learning all sorts of other programs, and its potential business use, it helps with learning about and applying: mathematics, statistics, database ideas, visual presentation of information, personal finance, and fundamental programming concepts such as variables, functions, data types, absolute and relative memory addressing, conditionals, and even events, properties, and the perils of spaghetti code (giving a motivation to move on to "real programming").

Dust off MIT's Scheme based CS lessons

[Anonymous Coward]

And nuke them from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

I was an Engineer teaching MS Excel

[dbIII]

I used to help run a first year Engineering practical course in materials science and one of the modules was a tensile test - keep on stretching some steel specimens until they break and then examine the data. The module was written to use the spreadsheet in MS Works, but by around 1998 most of the students had never seen MS Works before and that bogged things down with the result of some students finishing that part within an hour and an increasing number of others taking twice as long.
The plan was simple, shift it to MS Excel, all the kids learn MS Excel in school don't they? Well it turns out they learn how to do pretty pie graphs and to click through quickly without reading options or having a clue what the fuck they are doing and what things they've clicked on before. What happened is that at three hours there would still be people there trying to do a very simple XY plot and finding a few very simple properties of it. They could have done it more quickly on graph paper. The practical session had devolved into teaching students how to use a very simple bit of MS Excel (with admittedly insane defaults - but still simple). Refining the instructions over about three years to the point of mindless spoon feeding didn't have much of an effect - those students that knew what they were doing or actually looked at the instructions flew through from day one and those that just thought they knew what they were doing hit walls until they finally looked at the instructions or they got one on one help. Oddly it went more quickly with a package they didn't know (MS Works) because they were more prone to follow the instructions and actually think instead of clicking on stuff and typing in "the maximum" (including the quotes!) instead of a number.

Re:no reason why not

[Ramin_HAL9001]

Programming is not a fundamental skill in the same sense that mathematics, English, etc. are. It's a specific vocational skill.

I totally disagree. Almost every job has people using spreadsheets, at the very least for accounting. And using spreadsheets is, in a sense, the most basic form of programming. But I don't think we should teach every student to use a spreadsheet. I've never had use for spreadsheets because I know how to write a list of numbers into a text file, and sum the contents of that file with one line of code in my favorite programming language, and I do this so often I've setup my computer to make it happen faster than the time it takes for Excel load up.

Programming is no longer a vocational skill, it is a fundamental skill everyone needs to learn sooner or later. Almost every job uses some computer, though at this time, very few computers are programmable (cash registers, cell phones, etc.). But what if everyone knew how to write simple programs just as well as they knew how to add or subtract? What if in school they learned that if you are doing the same 5 things over and over again on your computer, it is better to write a script to do it for you, and then tell it to run 100 times in a row. If more people knew that this were possible, you might find more demand for simple shell interfaces in consumer computing devices.

Right now, everyone expects there to be an "App" for everything, not knowing most apps are GUI's attached to 3 or 4 lines of code in a programming language like Python or Ruby. If they knew they could do the same exact task that the app does, using nothing more than their wits, a Python or Bash interpreter, and 3 minutes of spare time, they would probably laugh at the ridiculously numerous, simplistic, needless "Apps" out there.

A Nice Solution In Search Of A Problem

[dewatf]

I love the engineering of the Raspberry Pi but seriously what on earth is it good for? We have seen this with thin clients and $100 laptops before.
They will only sell a few thousand to geeks who can always find a use for another box they can kit out with spare parts.

But for its supposed use by the time you fit a power supply, display, keyboard and a server and provide the training and support to use it in an institutional setting it it will cost roughly the same as a set up using cheap laptops or desktops. And they will be much more reliable and come with enough memory to run what ever you want.

As for hobby programming forget about it. The barrier to hobby programming isn't the hardware, pretty much anyone who wants to can scavenge an old intel desktop or laptop and install a live linux system and whatever language they feel like. Programming is largely a hobby of the wealthy and not important for kids. As long as they are properly trained in a bit of maths and logic in school they can pick up programming whenever they need it easily. The reason why kids spent time programming BBC Micros in the past was because they didn't have access to Angry Birds and cable TV. Those days are long gone and can't be brought back.

Re:It shouldn't be mandatory - They are insightful

[justforgetme]

One would argue that in the next generation the computer programming market will be much more mainstream than it is now.
Computer programs and automated/reprogramable devices replace legacy utilities in a day to day basis, it is not far fetched
to assume that a couple decades from now most low end jobs will be, low complexity, appliance programming instead of
hammer bashing.
After all it is documented that humans are getting better at abstract reasoning each generation, the move to a more
demanding curriculum every now and then is a necessity.

As usual too close or too far

[Anonymous Coward]

Although computer programming might be good for the brains, it is stupid that every single child in the school system HAS to learn to. Then what is next real economics, real mechanical engineering principles? There is a place for that, it is called college and peole focus more on what they like and choose to pursue. Of course you can find a middle point between just learning Power Point and what they are trying to do.

Re:Pixel function multiplies interest in programmi

[Twinbee]

Higher level drawing functions are good fun too and have their place and are great fun too. But go too high-level (giving them ready-made sprites and music) and a lot of the power and creativity is removed. Things get cookie-cutter like very quickly.

Sure, give them those things too, but there's no replacement for the pixel, in the sense that it's the building block of everything else. You can't create for example, raytracers out of the things you listed. Even the 'point' doesn't quite fit the bill as it doesn't quite have a one to one mapping with the physical pixels in the screen display.

Since the 80's

[nilbog]

I had programming classes once a week through much of elementary school which was in the 80's. We did LOGO(?) and some very small amount of BASIC.

I assumed some amount of programming has remained a part of the curriculum but I guess not? Seems odd in 2011 not the be showing elementary students how to manipulate the most important inventions of the modern world.

the point being

[shnull]

they get hauled off if they write code unauthorized by the ministry of information ? someone's gotta pay those poor jailwardens i suppose. MAN, are they creating a generation of hate i tell you, like nothing ever seen