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San Francisco Public Schools To Require Computer Science For Preschoolers
theodp writes: Never underestimate the ability of tech and its leaders to create a crisis. The S.F. Chronicle's Jill Tucker reports that the San Francisco School Board unanimously voted Tuesday to ensure every student in the district gets a computer science education, with coursework offered in every grade from preschool through high school, a first for a public school district. Tech companies, including Salesforce.com, as well as foundations and community groups, are expected to pitch in funding and other technical support to create the new coursework, equip schools and train staff to teach it. From Resolution No. 155-26A2 (PDF), In Support of Expanding Computer Science and Digital Learning to All Students at All Schools from Pre-K to 12th Grade: 1. "All students are capable of making sense of computer science in ways that are creative, interactive, and relevant." 2. "All students, from pre-K to 12, deserve access to rigorous and culturally meaningful computer science education and should be held to high expectations for interacting with the curriculum." 3. "Students' access to and achievement in computer science must not be predictable on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, socioeconomic status, language, religion, sexual orientation, cultural affiliation, or special needs." MissionLocal has a two-page SFUSD flyer on the project, which aims to illustrate the "importance of computer science" with the same Code.org jobs infographic that Microsoft used to help achieve its stated goal of creating a national K-12 CS crisis, and demonstrate "disparities in accessing CS education" for SFUSD's 57,000 students with a small-sample-size-be-damned bar chart of the racial demographics of the school district's 209 AP Computer Science participants (181 Asian, 0 African American, 6 Latino, 1 Native American, 14 White, 7 Other).
It's obviously very important to come out of high school with the skills required to train your H1-B replacement.
this is why i'm going to make sure my kids know to use computers and possibly program as tools and background knowledge but go to school for something really valuable like advanced math
I'm saddened by the misapplication of "computer science" as a term. When I took computer classes, they were not called "computer science" until one was actually supposed to program the computer. Like, open an IDE, write code, and compile it. Classes on computer usage before that were called "technology", "desktop publishing", "computers", and other names that did not include "science".
I don't think that it's appropriate to use computers to teach basic skills to children, but regardless of that perspective, it is wholly inappropriate to call an introduction to computers "computer science".
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
"Tech companies, including Salesforce.com, as well as foundations and community groups, are expected to pitch in funding and other technical support to create the new coursework, equip schools and train staff to teach it."
At least they're pretty transparent about it.
Now, one question for you Bay Area folks - Is there any linkage between the folks on the school board and the nice people on whatever city commission that decided that cell phones cause cancer? I'd love to see a meeting with both groups.
Two groups of crazies enter, six leave (this is San Francisco, after all).
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
What, do you seriously mean those millions of iPads we bought for our schools DIDN'T make students any smarter?
Obviously, learning to read, write and do basic math will be set aside for learning how to program.
Here is the problem, these people don't have a clue what is learned at what levels. And while I am all for teaching Computer science and such where it is profitable to do so, starting before kids can even write and do math is not "computer science" at all, it is just dick waving "hey look what I did for the kids!" political crap.
Here's an idea. Why not focus on reading, writing, math and building upon those at the appropriate times? And what about all those kids who don't want to be computer geeks, but rather artists, business people, biologists, doctors, lawyers etc? Are we going to build all those careers into our children's curriculum as well?
The fact is, factory learning is dead, we just don't know it yet. We have spent the last 250 years in factory schools, built using factory ideas to populate our factories with workers. Today, we need a change in how we educate people, so that they are ready for information jobs. This requires scrapping the "one size fits all" education model that is clearly dying (NCLB, Common Core etc), and replacing it with student paced education system where each student has a customized curriculum, based on ABILITY and WILLINGNESS to learn.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
I really wish that people would realize there is a big difference from using an app on a tablet or coding up a web page with some javascript to actual computer science. Computer science involves math, design, understanding memory usage, computer architecture, and much more. It is not just hacking out some code. You are not teaching pre-schoolers computer science. Nor are you teaching elementary school children that either.
That said, you should be teaching them basic algebra and logic skills that will be very applicable to many things in life. Absolutely teach them how to use a computer. All kinds of things can be done with that. Don't claim you are teaching them computer science.
I guess it really annoys me because it is like saying a TV repair man is an electrical engineer. Heck, that one is at least slightly closer than calling making a web page being a computer scientist....
I'm saddened by the misapplication of "computer science" as a term. When I took computer classes, they were not called "computer science" until one was actually supposed to program the computer. Like, open an IDE, write code, and compile it. I don't think that it's appropriate to use computers to teach basic skills to children, but regardless of that perspective, it is wholly inappropriate to call an introduction to computers "computer science".
I'd go a step further and say learning a computer language isn't studying computer science any more than learning a foreign language is studying linguistics. There is a difference between acquiring a specific skill and understanding the concepts and theory behind how the skill is employed.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
Making something "mandatory in all grades" breeds dislike. Young kids often like programming, (or math, or art, or language, or music) and understand right away that it can be fun. Then the schools mess it up. If you haven't read it, I recommend the essay known as Lockhart's Lament:
My wife, an educator, just heard me ranting and popped into the room: "Preschoolers need to play. That is the developmentally appropriate thing for them to be doing." She also reminded me that Steve Jobs didn't want his children looking at screens - he wanted them talking and reading.
Don't mess with The Phone Company. Piss them off and you'll be using two tin cans and a piece of string.
I don't understand why it's all about coding. They would do the world a great service if they would teach early students computer science concepts such as: Combinations and permutations, Probability theory, Set Theory, Analysis of algorithms, Symbolic logic, basic proofs in symbolic logic.
They should keep the questions they ask students simple and involve engagement of the brain always presenting novel problems, rather than emphasizing rote, such as ability to solve practiced problems of a standard form for a time-limited testing session.
Plus confine the nature of tests to questions about theory/background, and limit problems on exams to trivial "Toy" problems that can be worked out mentally in less than 1 minute.
IOW: Evaluation primarily based on submitting assignments, class participation, and participation in group projects measured by the examiner inspecting the development documents and reviewing which tickets were assigned to which student, And what code each student committed.
Just teaching coding.... the average student will need half a semester, before they can successfully write "Hello World"
They might be capable of implementing FizzBuzz on their own after a few years.
BUT they may seriously inspire people or help spark interest in the field, so even if the courses are useless to 80% of the students...... I think it really is worth it to society to require that everyone being schooled has a taste of programming, And that the taste they get is Not biased towards the negative; in other words, the classes should be given in a digestible manner, still with a challenge, but tasks kept simple enough to avoid scaring people away.