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Chicago Public Schools Promoting Computer Science to Core Subject
dmiller1984 writes "The Chicago Public Schools, the third-largest public school system in the United States, announced a five-year plan today that would add at least one computer science course to every CPS high school, and elevate computer science to a core requirement instead of an elective. CPS announced this through a partnership with code.org, stating that the non-profit would provide free curriculum, professional development, and stipends for teachers."
Every pupil will be required to take the Keyboarding course.
The computer labs will fill with students who hate being there.
...if this spreads to Australia, I might have a job?
Spent All My Mod Points
...people see that this is Gates and Zuck and blindly assume this is some lock-in without actually looking at the content.
If it were some Microsoft or Facebook specific thing then yes it would be bad, but it isnt. So please read the curriculum before commenting.
If we can't get basics like reading figured out, what does it matter?
Try this: duckduckgo/google/bing/etc for "chicago public schools proficient".
Let's get reading figured out before we promote other things to core requirements.
Yeah, this is great and all...
But wouldn't it be more useful to have a course that emphasizes critical thinking about all types of problems rather than focusing on one specific application of critical thinking? People usually seem to overlook that the important thing about working with computers is the ability to think critically about what you're doing, not the specifics of what you're doing.
Traditional science classes kind of broach the surface of critical thinking, but I suspect that it could be covered in much greater depth over a wide variety of problems, to much better effect.
of all students taking AP computer science, fewer than 20 percent are women and fewer than 10 percent are black or Latino.
But nobody is concerned about the 99% white female enrollment in "Home Economics" courses. Because "Home Ec." isn't a high-paying career right out of college.
Families shovel McDonald's fatburgers for dinner on their way home from buying shitty Chinese clothes from Wal-Mart, because mommy and daddy can't cook or sew.
Notice they don't mention "Asian". Because if they did, suddenly it doesn't look like an All-Whites thing anymore.
Yes, I think we should make this stuff available to kids. But a core req? Not appropriate to add another core while the basics are being outright ignored. How the fuck is Johnnie Latino or Jackson McBlack going to learn to code when they can't read above a 3rd grade level, are still working on getting the hang of long addition, and spend their free time after school bustin' rhymes and making fat stacks slinging dope?
Forcing CS down on everyone's throat would be like forcing calculus. Some can take it and some can't.
I'd guess that about half the population (IQ below 100) will never get programming no matter how hard you try to teach them.
But if a kid can pass algebra and geometry, they can probably learn some BASIC.
The ones that can't hack algebra, teach them Excel or data entry so the school board can be proud of leading the high tech education future or something along those lines.
If computer science is a requirement, then how will students in households without a general-purpose computer complete their homework assignments? A lot of households rely on iPhones, iPads, and/or game consoles, which don't offer much in the way of end-user programmability.
B.S. Computer Science or equiv. No thugs.
In my experience, you can teach any undergraduate student (and probably most high school students) how to start their own online business, or create a nice online presence for an existing business. It has become relatively easy to weave together techs like WordPress, Google Analytics and AdSense, and PayPal to put up content, see what's working, collect revenue or donations, even do simple A/B testing, without having any previous coding experience.
Once this is working, students can dive into the details of HTML/CSS, or even some PHP, and change things on their already working site. But instead of completing a class exercise, students are tweaking something that is already attracting customers. And you can see the effects of your changes in the web analytics. That's been a powerful motivator for my students to want to learn more about tech.
Computer science is a poor substitute for teaching logical argument and mathematical logic. But if they're going to teach computer science, I hope that doesn't mean "how to use Excel."
Probably use a computer at school
With the sorry state of student transit in some cities, it might be hard for a student who stays after school to complete his assignments to get home from school. Is Chicago any better?
or a library.
Provided that the other students haven't already reserved all the PCs at the library.
That depends on whether they're running the programming class in Excel's macro language because "it's already installed".
This is silly. Just a waste of money. Those kids need to be taught manners and morals at home. When they get to school, they need to be taught reading, writing and arithmetic. Then and only then branch out to other subjects.
You'd think that by 2014 this would be a very obvious requirement for any student to take. Certainly far more useful than chemistry and certainly way sooner than physics.
At the same time, I'm stunned that anyone would setup a situation where students are forced to have this as a requirement. There are many jobs/lifestyles that don't require any skills of this kind, and in which these sorts of skills are actually detrimental to those industries.
Basically, this looks a lot like 1980's algebra. Really incredibly valuable in 10% of the highest and most popular industries, and hence being pushed into schools. The moment that balance changes, we'll have another useless calculus on our hands.
If they can talk, they can program computers.
I'd guess that about half the population (IQ below 100) will never get programming no matter how hard you try to teach them.
Programming computers is easy. Algorithms are a little more difficult but programming, easier than learning to speak.
And when programming advances beyond our primitive typing of code, it'll be even easier.
Yeah, cue the dipshit who will accuse me of equating programming with typing.
Go ahead.
Nowadays would something like The Typing of the Dead be more popular?
CPS has a big budget problem, just like the rest of Illinois. CPS also has a very poor relationship with the public teachers union, the teachers went on strike last year and shut the district down.
Where exactly is CPS going to find people who are passionate and knowledgeable about CS who also want to teach in a public district in Illinois? Stipends and training are nice but I don't feel like forcing students to take a CS course, taught by a teacher who may have no real experience in CS, is going to encourage anyone already not determined to go to university for CS to change their mind. It may actually dissuade potential CS majors.
Chairman Mao recognized that China was behind the west, and tried to remedy this by setting up government "insitutes" to study "electronic appliances". It was just another brick in the wall. China didn't develop until it decided to "leave those kids alone" under Deng Tsia Ping.
Gently reply
But wouldn't it be more useful to have a course that emphasizes critical thinking about all types of problems rather than focusing on one specific application of critical thinking?
Teaching critical thinking early is a bad idea.
There is a place and time for shoveling as much information into a child's head as it can possibly hold without exploding. This is when we teach multiplication tables, drill grammar into their thick skulls, teach them basic math up through algebra, spelling, penmanship, history, and so on.
As soon as you teach critical thinking skills, it's like setting the write protect bit: it enables them to make a value judgement on the validity of the information they are being given by the teachers (and other adults), and as soon as you have that, you begin to build distrust of information sources - even ones with good information to impart.
Generally some critical thinking skills form on their own; creative writing, physics, chemistry, debate, and other classes tend to foster their development, regardless of whether or not you are done shoveling the basic stuff into their heads. As soon as that bit is set, you might as well give up trying to program them, you've lost: they're teenagers.
Logic classes belong in the first quarter/semester of your first year of college, and not before.
Kinda off topic but: I wanted to get a degree in CS at George Mason University but they program requires a lot of mathematics. I got a business degree instead.
I can just see the courses my school would have offered. Textbooks full of code that is bug ridden. Teachers that would not understand advanced programming and thus penalize awesome programmers that "colored outside the lines" and used advanced programming. I could see some student using a singleton instead of a global and having the teacher say "Wrong a global would have been cleaner." Even if you hate singletons, global are worse.
Then I could see the technology becoming either a buzzword bingo or really dated. So it would be intro to perl, visual basic, and power builder. Or an intro to node.js, ruby, and haskell.
But the second worst upon worst would be that companies would "freely" donate to the school system so that the kids would become little MSDN/Oracle/Salesforce drones.
The worst of worst would be that they would suck all the fun out of it; Every single drop. So instead of teaching them something relevant such as making a video game, an Arduino robot, or creating a tool for interacting with pintrest/twiter/vine etc. They would have them doing the age old command line enter your age and find out how old you are in dog years crap.
I have watched my nephews making crap in Unity3D and they are forcing themselves to learn programming. Much is copy and paste code then hammer it until it works. This is not going to create a firm foundation but if after this they took a rapid introduction to programming course that showed them how to do things correctly they would realize that many of their bad habits had a cure. But they wouldn't have to learn the underlying philosophy that makes you really grok programming which is something that most intro courses completely fail at. I have talked to many people who have just passed a university programming course and they usually don't know the difference between a float and an int. (Usually Java based courses so they should know).
I'm not saying that CS in highschool is a bad idea but that CS is for a certain type of person. You either love it or it is purely a chore. It seems that the goal is to expose tonnes of people to CS and hope that a few end up joining our little cult. So my suggestion is to create for credit computer/engineering clubs. The idea would be to have the tools and a mentor who would encourage independent study and small group projects. This way someone who has been doing Arduino assembly since grade 8 would be able to attempt something fantastic while someone else who had failed to compile Hello World and still loved it would also have a place that welcomed them. Trying to have a standard curriculum is just going to annoy everybody and only result in wasted time and tears; and maybe even a worse outcome as the person who wants to make an app is just going to get pissed off writing the usual command line garbage. Personally I would much rather make a crappy buggy app than a perfect command line thing on my first go.
I bet you guys this will increase test scores in math noticeably, or at least interest in math, if only because programming makes it seem more useful.
One of the benefits of a CS class is the flipped model that allows most, if not all, of the work to be completed in class.
Watching video lessons at home would fix the "all we have is an iPad/Xbox" problems so long as the video lessons are compatible with Safari for iOS and IE for Xbox 360. But it still leaves the problem of needing to buy a computer or device in the first place and subscribe to wired broadband at home, as watching too many videos on a smartphone over 3G/4G will cause the parent to have to pay the carrier when the student incurs a data overage.
Mario Teaches Typing hasn't been updated since 1996 according to Wikipedia. How well does it work in Windows 7, 8, or 8.1? Or are schools prepared to hunt down a Windows 95/98 license per machine and run it in a virtual machine?
One of the largest issues in Washington state was that the computer classes were largely funded by MS, as such there was some clause or agreement that they would teach MS' Office products. Sure its good to know the basics but these teachers took it too far. The majority did not need to be certified, they just need to get a foot hold on each program and understand the capabilities so they can use it efficiently when needed.
Offering typing and MS Office only is NOT GOOD! Like others have said it will turn away many students as they are either uninterested or already proficient. The ideal would be to have those classes but for a basic level. Offer coding classes, basic networking, things that will excite young minds.
Many kids who get into coding soon find out that typing is essential and will be more inclined to improve their typing skills.
As far as affording good teachers, who says that they have to have a CS degree? I firmly believe that a good teacher would show kids how to find answers via Google or Bing. Do you know how many people can't effectively refine a search on google? It's maddening. A good teacher attempting to show kids basic programming should have some familiarity, but in reality they should be prepping them for their continued education, i.e. show them how to find more advanced material. Introduce them to MIT and other classes that have been recorded and posted online. I think the key here is to find things that interest kids. Why? because you have to convince them that CS is awesome but it does require knowing how to read, write, and of course math.
I think the biggest problems coming from a small college is that the CS program was all about programming and then some more programming. This turned a lot of students away from CS. Had we offered networking, or some other aspect of computer science then maybe we may have retained more students in the CS program.
I work with highly paid "professionals" and at least half of them suck. The H1B thing is such a farce as well before it became so huge at least the majority of professional developers were decent, most H1B holders are less competent than the self taught or community college people. These companies need coders, guess what offer to train people, surely they can find some of the young unemployed americans who might be motivated if given an opportunity. How about all of the nonsense they make senior develops do in most places unrelated to technology. It's a crock the problem is not, too few H1B visa, the problem is companies don't want to invest in employees, apprentices, interns, clerical people.... Where I work I sit next to a guy who is a fairly specialized developer who frequently wastes tons of time filling out forms, etc. Meanwhile his team cannot find people to hire...his productivity could be higher but because the company has tons of policies and red tape he wastes time doing tasks a clerical person could do to the tune of 200k per year. Teach comp sci, not programming, teach people to think, how things work, etc(any monkey can code, thinking and design are the distinction). Fix your technical shortages by hiring interns, young people, apprentices, train them and give them the less difficult and more mundane tasks, let them learn from senior devs/rockstars. Why should a senior developer earning big money be writing trivial code? I'm paid $125 an hour to for the most part write mundane code, less than 10% of my time is spent doing anything challenging yet they only want to hire brilliant people or else outsource/offshore to the worst...I mean cheapest developers known to man.
1) civics
2) math
3) art
4) music
5) nothing removed
but you're losing sight of the problem code.org is trying to solve: highly paid software engineers. Whoops, there I go again with that 'Critical Thinkin''. :)
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The world needs ditch diggers too you know. Increasingly I'm seeing a sink or swim mentality brought on by businesses (and the local Republican run "Chamber of Commerce", which to my surprise is actually just a lobby group for the GOP).
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So, we're wanting to teach all kids how to program. I wonder what this will do to the "hacker" community. This is a shit-storm waiting to happen. Between teachers not knowing jack about computers to the corporate infrastructure that will (attempt to) be laid down, this is just digging further into the can of worms that isn't working already.
I see someday a war of minds, maybe very near in the future. And interestingly enough, I think the farmers will win.
Politics; n. : A religion whereby man is god.
So they are using the term "Computer Science", and within high school. So exactly what are they teaching? They teach 'computers' in schools now, and its a warmed over version of a multi-billionaires office suite. That's not really 'Computer Science' now, is it? Would they actually be taking a watered down introduction to programming course? Would at least BASIC be taught? It would be useful if students at least had an idea of how computers do what they do. It would go a long way to end the luddism most people have w.r.t. the technology they use. It would go a long way to giving them a clue as to how things happen. Why do I get a feeling though, that we will see 'advanced office suite' and nothing else?
Fuck the poor!
Are you envious because the poor are having more sex than you are?
Every kid has a smartphone with texting.
Even children of the working poor?
Especially the poor. Phones are dirt cheap
Dumbphone plans are cheap. Smartphone plans aren't because carriers in the country that includes Chicago tend to force expensive data plans on smartphone customers.
The only people today who don't have phones are willfully antisocial basement dwelling Slashdot posters.
Not all phones are created equal. Some are landlines. Some are flip phones with T9 instead of QWERTY.
Why should a bright child of poor parents be forced into ditch digging?
(Y) :-)
One of my CS classes in college we barely touched a computer at all. It was all short paragraphs about how concepts worked, psuedo-code, etc. You can code in a computer lab and then give written homework which can be just as effective. Tests were never on the computer.
We had some computers in high school. We had many of them in college.
In both settings, the lecture was actually very important. The lectures were about algorithms. Because these were elective programs (or perhaps met an elective requirement for an engineering degree) most of the students did well. Even the ones who struggled with it were at least highly motivated. Even people like myself who had done a lot of coding outside the classroom struggled with the material at times, so it was very challenging. I had the misfortune to take the 100 level course the last year before they switched from Pascal to C.
For some strange reason, pointers were harder in Pascal than C; but that might be because it was my first exposure to memory in a HLL (I had experience with 6502 assembly, purely self taught). The entire 1st semester was to write a Logo interpreter in Pascal. You built it piece-by-piece each week. If you couldn't complete a piece bug-free, you were graded on how close you got and permitted to use the instructor's code as a starting point for the next week. If you were really good, you'd have your very own interpreter; but most of us ended up with a patched instructor's version.
Anyway, I digress. The instructors had to know the material. It wasn't a lot of typing. It was algorithms and the language was just a tool used to make the machine execute the algorithms.
I feel like a got a quality CS education when I was in the CS department even though I wasn't a CS major. Something tells me these kids aren't in for such a good experience...
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Given that only 21% of Chicago 8th graders can read, and Illinois ranks 28th overall versus other states. It seems that they should first focus on the basics. Once the schools are capable of actually teaching again, then they should think about teaching advanced studies.
In the new `computer science' class, they will not be covering what a computer is, how it works, etc. but, rather, MS Office. Right?
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
step 1: get computers in all CPS schools
I don't believe you are understanding what I am trying to say.
Here's the skinny:
1) kids BEGIN to question the inherent nature of the information they are given at a basic level by the age of 3 to 4, when they realize that other people know things they do not. It is not very long at all after that, that they realize that people lie, and that they need to find a way to discriminate. They might not be very good at it yet, but they are *already* doing this at that age. THERE IS NO TIME AFTER THAT that they just soak things in without at least some* introspection. NONE.
2) as a consequence of 1), children not only need to know "what", but also "why". This is why kids fail to achieve with our current educational system, and fail to be prepared adults by highschool graduation. Our educational system does NOT want to answer why-- only what. As such, children have to create their own answers as to why, which are biased against their limited personal experiences, much to their detriment. Teaching them critical thinking at an early age will REQUIRE teaching them the why, as well as the what, and help them arrive at a more solid mental framework at highschool graduation.
The current public educational system is obcessed with test scores which test "what" kids "know". (In fact, they "know" very little as a result of our educational system, since they cannot abstractly apply that information they have had drilled into them. They have memorized things they do not understand. That is not knowledge.)
Attempting to fix this problem with brow beating, and rote memorization is trying to fix the problem with more of the problem. It's pure madness.
our public high school (near minneapolis) has had a tech/computer requirement for graduation since the mid 1980s.
I don't know about the Win95 version, to be honest. Taking a look at the first Youtube video when searching for "Mario Teaches Typing", there's a comment from a month ago saying that he played it at school. It's easier than you might imagine in any case, because there's an even older DOS version that works in DOSBox, that can be downloaded from many places on the net.
But honestly, the idea of "gamification" is done so well by this game (despite being created a decade before the term existed), having a new and updated version would be incredibly helpful for teachers of any computer course that requires typing proficiency. If done as well as the original while focusing the changes in the right places (update the graphics [seriously, Mario doesn't even jump to kill koopas], make it longer, string levels together w/ save points between them, don't mess with the mechanics much besides making it clearer that you're not doing well on a stage and are going to fail at this rate), it would be one of the very rare smash hits for the edutainment genre. I could see Nintendo releasing an updated and improved version every decade or so, and profiting handsomely since nobody else makes these kinds of games anymore, and even fewer get so many elements of edutainment mechanics right.
Speaking as one who had the misfortune of having to try to help kids with no interest at all in computing, back when I was in high school myself, this is a fucking idiotic idea. Coding isn't for everyone.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
if you put enough students in front of keyboards, they will ultimately write shakespeare.
the internet has proved this "maxim" false
I have an extensive amount of experience working with IT departments in public schools, including the one in Chicago. Let's just say I don't have a lot of confidence in their abilities to provide an adequate environment to teach computer science.
Being a native Chicagoan, I think people are misinterpreting the situation. Someone on the school board has set up a sweet kick back deal with a PC vendor, possibly their cousin, and needs to come up with a justification for increased spending. So they invented some BS programming class which will be a complete failure, but their cousin will make out like a bandit selling hardware and software. And, yes, this money would be better spent on desks and text books.
The only thing worse than a Democrat is a Republican.
Too bad they dont add proper english reading and writing skills to their curriculum. What fricken good is programming when most of those kids are functionally illiterate. Its like selling 'sports' as a career path to kids.
It's not racist to point out that Chicago Public Schools have been doing a piss-poor job of teaching anyone who doesn't get into an IB/magnet program. In fact, social justice requires working on this very problem.
Finding God in a Dog
there's an even older DOS version that works in DOSBox
But how would a school system as big as Chicago's find enough lawfully made copies of MTT for DOS for all the typing students?
Employer-issued phones. Or hand-me-down devices from the richer side of the family. Or having bought the device before circumstances change, such as loss of a job.
Offering computer as a major course is not new, this goes back to 1978. As part of a partnership with MIT and the Boston Public Schools, they implemented a Computer Science curriculum in the Mario Umana Harbor School of Science and Technology.
Fight Spammers!
They need to get kids math skills up first. Get everyone proficient in at least algebra, including linear, and add some basic set theory and probability.
Without that, any legitimate CS course is worthless.
It's not that I don't find your argument persuasive. I certainly agree that, in principle, it is important to teach the "why" (and, by extension, the "how" of discovering the "why"/"what"). However, I can't ignore tlambert's more pragmatic concerns, which he reaffirms in http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=4536685&cid=45648383 It bears remembering that humans are boundedly rational, and in kids that's exacerbated by their initial ignorance. We don't know whether, if given the formal tools of critical thinking before foundational knowledge and some experience has been laid, they would necessarily be applied without significant bias in a way that affects further learning in a negative manner. And yes, as you wrote, they would otherwise create their own answers as to the "why" with bias as well, but this can be countered by teaching some of the "why" in a subject-targeted manner, which can be done in a way that has less of the potential downside that tlambert is worried about. I don't think anyone here is actually advocating "brow beating and rote memorization", but tlambert, please comment here if I've misrepresented your position.
As an aside, I want to point out that even "hardcore" memorization has its place. In a recent discussion on organic chemistry here, http://slashdot.org/story/13/11/03/1537247/why-organic-chemistry-is-so-difficult-for-pre-med-students , many derided the difficulty brought on by the tremendous amount of special cases and exceptions to the rules one has to remember. However, a couple of posts there noted with insight that it is through that very process that one begins to learn to recognize the patterns underlying all the exceptions and when to apply them, patterns generally too complex to be expressed formally and distilled into a textbook.
"Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason."
You have not misrepresented me. Thank you for the succinct comments.
Your organic chemistry example is a good one; I'd class it in there with trigonometric identities and rules of English grammar as things where the patterns must be discerned by the individual (otherwise, the practice of all three would be regular enough to not need exceptions).
Should work in a VM with Wine. Sounds silly to use Linux to run old Windows software but it's often easier.
You might be right. Besides, I just realized I had forgotten about state governments' Eleventh Amendment right to infringe copyrights owned by citizens of other states, such as Washington-based Nintendo and California-based Interplay.