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US Dept. of Ed: English, History, and Civics Teachers Good Enough For CS Class
theodp writes: In A New Chapter for Computer Science Education, the U.S. Department of Education explained earlier this month that the federal STEM Education Act of 2015 'provides an unprecedented opportunity to fully leverage federal resources' to address large gaps in students' participation in Advanced Placement (AP) computer science classes based on gender and race. "In three states," lamented the DOE, "not a single female student took the AP computer science exam" (that only 8 boys took the AP CS exam in those same 3 states was apparently not a concern). And the DOE has good news for those hoping to tap Title I and II funds for CS, but don't have any computer science teachers. "A background in math or science isn't necessarily a requirement to teach CS," explains the Dept. of Ed, "as disciplines like English, history and civics can also provide a solid foundation for teaching CS concepts."
When I was in 8th grade, I got my hands on an Interdata 8/32 system that had a pair of teletype ASR-33s, and a BASIC interpreter. I spent a year mostly waiting for my turn at one of the two keyboards that about a dozen of us wanted to use. I typed in BASIC games from David Ahl's book, and I played around with punching large letters on the paper tape and printing out ASCII art.
In my high school, we had a computer lab with three HP terminals, that connected through a leased line to a pair of HP2000 and an HP3000 minicomputer. The HP machines were able to submit batch jobs to an IBM 360 through an RJE(remote job entry) facility.
My computer teacher was a retired USAF colonel who had some experience with mainframes, and some exposure to basic concepts of computing back in the 1950s and early 60s. For most of the kids, concepts like hashing and basic statistical methods were over their heads, so he taught me and two or three of my friends, and we taught the class.
The main thing we got out of the school's computer lab was access. The most interesting things we did had nothing to do with the curriculum, they were all after-school and free period projects. We learned how to defeat the trivial security that HP had at the time, we wrote BASIC programs that did fun tricks on the CRT terminals with cursor control, we had a rudimentary chat and e-mail system which the administration kept trying to shut down, and we got our hands on a BASIC rewrite of Crowther & Woods Adventure, and later Zork games, which we experimented with and modified. About this time, a handful of my friends were getting their hands on Apple and Atari computers at home.
Where I really learned to write code was on my first two computing jobs: the first was a company that was developing games for Cox Cablevision to run on a set-top box that they were test marketing. The second job was where I learned the C language, by writing code and making every possible mistake while sitting in an office beside two much more skilled C developers (one of whom later went on to serve on the ANSI committee that standardized the language.)
In the years since then, every good programmer I've worked with has been largely self-taught, and they started at the same age or earlier than I did. I'm convinced that the best thing an elementary or high school can hope for today is just letting kids figure it out by working with their peers on whatever interests them.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
They have no students. They operate no schools.
And worst of all, they have no clue what CS is. They think CS is writing a document in Word, creating an Excel spreadsheet and googling.
Hey, English teachers can do that, so English teachers can teach CS!
I'm just wondering where the folks at the DoE got their educations . . . ?
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
I live in a county where a few years ago, we had to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars because some Christian Fundie wanted "Intelligent Design" and the "controversy of Evolution" taught in our biology classes.
Our CS budget went to lawyers.
Local control of schools isn't such a good thing.
There are some subject-matter-experts who are a genuine menace in the classroom(I suspect that most of us probably took at least one course in college from the TAs they shoved all the actual work of teaching the course onto.
I've had more that a few full tenure professors who had NO business lecturing to a classroom. In many of these cases I was actually glad when they handed off to a TA. I want the best teachers and could not care less if they are subject matter experts beyond the level of the class. The research most professors do has little or nothing to do with what they are teaching most of the time. Even when it is related the classroom stuff is so far below their research that it becomes irrelevant. I don't need a Nobel prize winner to teach me physics 101. I just want someone who is a very good lecturer and has an solid grasp of the material being taught at the level it is being taught.
That said, the notion that teaching theory is somehow a substitute for actually knowing the subject is an absurd and dangerous notion. Learning about driving in a classroom is no substitute for actually having spent time driving. I cannot fathom how anyone would thing a background in civics could possibly qualify someone to teach computer science no matter how good they are at the mechanics of teaching.
This is a major problem here in upstate NY. At my kids' school nearly half of the teachers aren't qualified to teach the subjects they currently teach. We a have science teacher teaching math, an English teacher teaching science, and a math teacher that teaching english. Meanwhile, the principle has 14 administrative assistants and is the most abusive, sexist woman I have ever seen. Racism is through the roof as well (though that is district wide, not just from her).
In my home state of Minnesota, they allow anyone with either a business licensure or a mathematics licensure to teach computer science. In college, I majored in Computer Science and Secondary Mathematics Education. I found it ironic that it was my math licensure that allowed me to teach computer science and not my computer science degree. I found it just as silly that I was not allowed to teach keyboarding; mathematics teachers are not qualified for that. Also, just as amusing, anyone in the state with an English licensure is licensed to teach web page design.
It's a complete joke that our government advocates for increased computer science education, while in the same breath says that anyone can teach it. By that same perverse logic, I should be fully qualified to become a law professor. Right? Computer science is very logical...very layered...very structured...lots of inheritances...sounds like a good foundation of law to me.
And stuff like this is why many think the Department of Education should be eliminated or severely scaled back. Perhaps set national standards but not get into the day-to-day operations of a school.
Aside from No Child Left Behind which was mandated by CONGRESS, the Dept of Education has very little to do with the day to day operations of schools. In fact the Dept of Ed is by a wide margin the least involved ministerial level department for education in the civilized world. The US education system is hugely decentralized and demonstrably NOT controlled from Washington. People calling for the Dept of Ed to be eliminated or scaled back invariably have no idea what it does. Any meddling it does with regard to operations of schools is because it was instructed to do so by Congress. All it would take to change that is another act of Congress and in fact such a law was just passed. Repeal NCLB and ESSA and the Dept of Education would have almost no direct interaction with most school systems.
Once upon a time, well 1960, there was a Presidential Debate where candidates discussed societal issues (imagine that). One topic that came up was the nature of federal support for local schools. Both candidates, Kennedy (D) and Nixon (R), were concerned that federal support (funding) would lead to federal meddling.
And very little has changed. There is very little funding and for the most part very little meddling.
I think we are now seeing the wisdom of their shared concerns regarding centralizing too much control and authority in Washington DC.
"Wisdom"? No. That is ideology, not wisdom. Virtually every other country in the civilized world has FAR more centralized control over education than we do in the US and many of them get measurably better results. If you think decentralized schooling is good I'd invite you to visit the school districts in places like Detroit or Cleveland or Los Angeles. They get terrible results and no one holds them accountable or gives them any substantial help. Federal control has problems to be sure but so does local control.
far too many subpar teachers, who whine and complain about having to take continuing education without being paid a stipend.
It's an ongoing refrain (like for years) here about how horrible employers are for expecting IT people to spend their own time and money constantly training themselves on new technologies, new languages or new frameworks or else get laid off for some cheap new graduate who happened to see those things in college classes.
If new knowledge training is required for your job and directly benefits your employer, why the hell shouldn't the employer be expected to pay for either your training hours or the training fees?