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Hour of Code 2015 Star Wars Tutorial: Spare the IF Statement, Spoil the Child?

Posted by Soulskill on from the turtle-can-make-no-choices dept.

theodp writes: Teaching U.S. K-12 kids their programming fundamentals in past Hours of Code were an IF-fy Bill Gates and a LOOP-y Mark Zuckerberg. Interestingly, the new signature tutorial — Star Wars: Building a Galaxy with Code — created by Lucasfilm and Code.org ("in a locked room with no windows") for this December's Hour of Code, eschews both IF statements and loops. The new learn-to-code tutorial instead elects to show students "events" after they've gone through the usual move-up-down-left-right drills. With the NY Times and National Center for Women & Information Technology recently warning against putting Star Wars in the CS classroom ("Attracting more female high school students to computer science classes might be as easy as tossing out the Star Wars posters," claimed an Aug. 29th NCWIT Facebook post), the theme of the new tutorial seems an odd choice for Code.org, whose stated mission includes "increasing [CS] participation by women." But if Star Wars is, as some suggest, more aimed at boys, perhaps Code.org has something up its sleeve for girls (a la last year's Disney Princesses) with another as yet unannounced signature tutorial that it teased would be "just as HUGE" as the Star Wars one. Any guesses on what that might be?

8 of 156 comments (clear)

  1. What kind of sexist.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "Attracting more female high school students to computer science classes might be as easy as tossing out the Star Wars posters,"

    Excuse me, but by that warped sexist logic, just throw out the computers entirely! Replace them with stoves and dish racks!

    Literal WTF

    1. Re:What kind of sexist.... by phishybongwaters · · Score: 1, Insightful

      AGree 100%, while I agree with equality and I'm still amazed, and ashamed, that a gender pay gap even exists in 2015, assuming star wars posters are the reason girls aren't into coding, and suggesting putting up disney princess posters might help? That's about as sexist as it can get right there folks. People get into coding for various reasons, and the posters in the computer lab rarely have an effect. Why are we differentiating coders by gender at all? Why aren't we trying to attract ANYONE into coding regardless of gender or race? That said... If you are a female coder, I suggest you grow a thick skin before you try to get involved with any linux projects If you are a MALE coder, I suggest you grow a thick skin before you try to get involved with any linux projects The fact that the solution to the problem is itself sexist, I think we need to be looking broader at this. How does C# appeal to boys but not girls? It doesn't. It appeals to CODERS even before they know they are coders. All this will do is fill the market with mediocre coders, the same way photoshop has filled the graphic design market with mostly useless people who know how to operate 3 or 4 pre-built filters, and that's it. They don't even know what xif is. I work in IT, I see plenty of females here, not as many as males obviously, but they are here, qualified and talented as all get out. I think the sexist nature of the career field is what might put them off. Again, the solution from the "field" is itself blatantly sexist. "Maybe if we made the computers pink" Just... just no

    2. Re:What kind of sexist.... by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Erm... Throwing a link to a text of Summers around disqualified you immediately

      Denigrating someone else's citations, while providing none of your own, is very bad form. You lose.

  2. Holy links ... by gstoddart · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Wow, 13 freakin' links ... like anybody reads the articles now.

    Is there an actual article in there somewhere?

    --
    Lost at C:>. Found at C.
  3. Star Wars and girls? by jdavidb · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I'm married with three daughters, and all the women and girls in this house like Star Wars.

    --
    Secession is the right of all sentient beings.
    1. Re:Star Wars and girls? by sandytaru · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Yeah, I'm puzzled over this. When I was a 14 year old I fell madly in love with Star Wars. I wanted to be Princess Leia and I wanted to marry Han Solo. Cool stories don't need to be separated by arbitrary gender binaries.

      --
      Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
  4. Re:For the Nth Time by BarbaraHudson · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You're also not teaching someone to code if you avoid conditional logic and loops. That was true if life as well, even before computers. "If (no cars coming) cross the road. or while (timer less than 45 minutes) leave cake in oven. or while (hungry) eat. Even case statements are handy constructs.

    --
    "Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
  5. Differences in Subject and Narrative by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    2014: Promotional campaign using mass-media characters targeted at girls. Media narrative: is it acceptable to expose kids to commerically-owned media franchises in an educational context?

    2015: Promotional campaign using mass-media characters targeted at boys. Media narrative: is it acceptable to expose kids to educational content that might be oriented towards boys?

    Conclusion: Narratives regarding possible female exclusion trump allegations of corporate mass-media meddling. Useful information for CorpComm professionals.