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English Schools To Introduce Children To 3D Printers, Laser Cutters, Robotics

Posted by samzenpus on from the path-to-the-future dept.

First time accepted submitter Kingston writes "In a radical change to the English National Curriculum, Michael Gove, the Education Secretary has announced ambitious changes to the technology syllabus. Children will be introduced to programming and debugging from the age of 5. Secondary schools (age 11 and up) will be required to have a 3D printer and introduce children to laser cutters and robotics in the design and technology course. The much derided ICT (Information and Communications Technology) subject will be overhauled to teach 'several' programming languages to children so that they can 'design, use and evaluate computational abstractions that model the state and behavior of real-world problems and physical systems.'"

2 of 119 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Right up until... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You can make a lot of things with your hands without a 3D printer, including guns. You can make a gun out of readily available wood using only cutting tools, and you can even craft the bullets for them with simple tools. I think people are a bit hysterical about 3D printing, it can used for far more than printing weapons. Colonial times called, they want their basic invention back. You could argue that someone could make a plastic knife at school and shank someone with it. But, prisoners have proven you can make a shank out of toilet paper with your bare hands, water and some time. You can't ban intent by banning a piece of equipment, malevolent people will find a way. In the meantime, the technology can be used to bring a lot of ingenuity into the world. Imagine a youngster creating developing an arduino platform and a case to go around it using a 3d printer to create a handheld device to analyze bacteria in the air for example. Science projects in the future are going to get a lot more interesting. You can create very dangerous things in the chemistry lab, should we ban chemistry as well? I just think the mere notion is silly.

  2. Re:Oooh Goodie! by Microlith · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Now we can introduce even more people to tinker toys that they'll never use after they get out of school!

    And you know this how

    How about concentrating on reading comprehension, mathematics, and basic sciences

    Yeah, we should never expose children to the wider realities of technology. We should hold their noses to the desk, and ensure they never see anything but the insides of books until they can parrot back exactly what they are shown. Just remember that we also need to ensure that we must present math and science in as boring a manner as possible to suck the life and interest out of every student who encounters it.

    Not everyone gets to be a rocket scientist when they grow up

    Therefore no one should ever be allowed to build a model rocket, or be taught physics, in school.

    we need to tailor our education systems to present high-but-attainable options.

    Or we should give students every possible avenue and let them experience and experiment with whatever we can and let them determine their skills.

    There's no dishonor in being a certified journeyman welder or an electrician or even a plumber, and all can pay very well if the individual learns the skills needed.

    There isn't, but limiting education such that those are the pinnacle people can hope for is as idiotic as any stupid thing being done in education today.