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Chelsea Clinton At NCWIT: More PE, Less Zuckerberg
theodp (442580) writes "Among the speakers at last week's National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT) Summit was Chelsea Clinton, who spoke fondly of the Commodore she received as a kid on Christmas Day in 1987. During the Q&A, Clinton was asked (Vimeo), 'What do you see as some of the right policies that could help put Computer Science — which is undeniably the most important 21st Century skill — into our classrooms?' To which the former First Daughter responded, 'I won't quibble with the fact that I think it's very important. I also think other things admittedly are important.' Such as? Aligning Computer Science with Common Core, for one thing ('Ensure that Computer Science is part of the definition of science'). Using state budget surpluses to hire additional physical education teachers for elementary and middle school students, for another ('For Computer Science, as any subject, kids that are well-fed with healthy food and who have been activated in their bodies will able to learn and retain information in any subject better than if they're not'). And, last but not least, 'continuing to tell stories of people that are not...people who don't look like Mark Zuckerberg as successful in Computer Science and technology.' NCWIT, by the way, was listed as a "major partner" on last December's Hour of Code, which arguably made Mark Zuckerberg the face of Computer Science for K-12 students in the nationwide campaign embraced by President Obama during CSEdWeek."
Why do we care what she thinks?
Why, Chelsea herself demonstrates that there are options for people who don't look like Mark Zuckerberg. All you need to do is be born into the right family and you too can be Vice Chair of a foundation you basically can't be fired from.
She's just a political Kardashian, why do people pay any attention to her?
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
'What do you see as some of the right policies that could help put Computer Science — which is undeniably the most important 21st Century skill — into our classrooms?'
"Undeniably", technology buffoon? Scavenging for food and repairing shelters and small machines are much more likely to be the most needed skill in the not too distant future.
Computer science is not a skill. Even if it were, however, I'd regard its status as undeniably the most important 21st Century skill to in fact be fairly deniable.
As best I can tell, the closest things to 'IT unions' are employer cartels (like the one that settled as fast as possible relatively recently, lest the discovery get really interesting). Despite any empirical evidence to the contrary, the employees have substantially bought the line that they are just too special and above average to be dragged down by obstructionist union thugs who worship only seniority.
While many colleges offer (arguably unecessarily) cushy gym facilities, they also tend to price anything they can describe as a PE 'class' more or less the same as anything else with credit-hours attached, though obviously only some majors accept many or any such credit hours for anything being fulfilling distribution requirements, at schools where those exist.
Now, I'm actually not sure if gym/coach staff are lower-paid than adjunct professors anymore; but you can pay some pretty silly prices on campus if you want some fairly minimal coaching or oversight, rather than just making things up in the gym; but that gets classed as a class. The base charges for whatever facilities are there, though, tend to either be low or Mandatory, so if self-directed is your thing, it's less of an issue.
Points to Ms Clinton for asking that money be put to fundamental development and the general betterment.
How sad that more people do not realize computers have brought "General Betterment" to more people than most inventions in history.
Sanitation? Fresh water? Roads? Irrigation? Medicine? Education?
I am not a crackpot.
But Common Core is shit, and it's robbing children, notably poor minority children, of their education.
What works? Letting teachers teach and putting the administrators on a tight leash.
What doesn't work? Micromanaging all teachers, telling them how to do their job, and letting administrators run the show.
Let's stick with what works. We don't need iPads in every classroom, we don't need to teach every kid C++, and we don't need bizarre curriculum revamps or biased and unproven testing methods like Smarter Balance.
Computer science _is_ the math. If you ignore the math, you're ignoring the entire field.
Posted from the wireless couch.
But interestingly enough... no matter how much smoke you blow, you failed to answer the question.
Why do we care what she thinks?
Because she is a visible public-speaking figure with the power to lobby for or against things. For better or worse what matters in this world is not what you know but your power to influence policy making. This is not to say knowing and ability to influence are mutually exclusive, nor I'm saying whether Chelsea Clinton is qualified to say what is needed or not in STEM education.
I'm simply saying that if *you* (the generic you) do not care what a public speaker with the potential power of influence (directly or by political/family ties) says simply because some perceived or real lack of technical acumen, *you* are an idiot.
It is like saying "why should we care what a Creationist politician thinks?" and then wondering why state legislation bodies keep passing idiotic laws regarding STEM education in public schools.
Stupid, right?
Against, this is not say whether Chelsea Clinton is onto something or is completely unqualified to speak about the subject, but more about an indictment in ./'s collective technotard arrogance and cluelessness on how the world operates. That your post actually gets modded as insightful is a pathetic example of that sad state of affairs among people who consider themselves techno-illuminated.
History is extremely relevant. If you don't chronicle your past, and learn from it, you're doomed to repeat it. You can learn a lot from how people used to do things.