K-12 CS Efforts Earn Microsoft CEO Ringside Seat For State of the Union Address

theodp writes: When President Obama delivers his final State of the Union address on Tuesday, the White House reports that the inspiring individuals seated with the First Lady will include Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. "Microsoft has been a leader in expanding access to computer science in K-12 classrooms," explains the White House, perhaps unaware that the company reportedly struck a deal to kill BASIC on Macs in 1985 and stopped including BASIC on PCs after Windows 95. Ironically, Microsoft now laments that girls began to stop seeing themselves as coders after 1984, which gave rise to the need for today's Microsoft-led national K-12 CS intervention. "Girls don't see other girls programming," Microsoft explained in 2013, "so they just don't know that it's available to them." So, is there such a thing as corporate Munchausen syndrome by proxy?

Comments

K12 CS efforts for girls only

[Anonymous Coward]

Let this be known that nasty little boys regardless of their skin color will be unable to pursue any such training. Because that's progress! /sarc

$$Money$$

[rfengr]

Lobbying can buy your front row seats.

The most condescending, sexist statement...

[MikeRT]

I've seen in a long time:

"Girls don't see other girls programming," Microsoft explained in 2013, "so they just don't know that it's available to them."

I think any commentary I add is likely to just detract from the awesomely stupid essence of that last quote. They don't know it's available to them? What the hell does that even mean?

Re:The most condescending, sexist statement...

[Okian Warrior]

And this, dear readers, is why we can't talk about mental illness online. Or gender differences. Or racial differences. Or religious differences.

Anyone who is *actually biased* uses descriptive language that picks out one side or the other.

Therefore, any descriptive language that picks one side or the other necessarily means the writer is actually biased.

And this is why we can't talk about inequalities or differences, online or in person. Whenever someone tries to point out differences they are labelled as racist, or sexist, or whatever.

It is impossible to have a rational discussion about any of these issues.

(It's called the fallacy of the reversed conditional, and it's used to lock down discussion in many places. It's an easy win for one side, just call the other side "sexist" and take offense.)

Re:The most condescending, sexist statement...

[k6mfw]

Fewer boys are graduating HS than girls, fewer boys are getting Uni degrees, more boys actually commit suicide than girls. Women live significantly longer than men...here's an idea, rather than waste time, money & effort on a program that has dubious value lets maybe take a look at what we can do to reduce this clear gender gap in favor of girls/women.

uhmm, boys wear 'pink stuff,' carrying a purse, use makeup?

Let it go already

[wonkey_monkey]

perhaps unaware that the company reportedly struck a deal to kill BASIC on Macs in 1985 and stopped including BASIC on PCs after Windows 95.

Perhaps the author is unaware that those events were 30 and 20 years ago respectively.

seems rather myopic of microsoft.

[nimbius]

"Girls don't see other girls programming," Microsoft explained in 2013

One word: Adafruit. hell, all you have to do is hit twitter to see people like @aloria (infosec engineer) fully participating in programming. Please stop focusing on why gender isnt part of programming and start focusing on the fact that, with the help of the DMCA, you've effectively crushed any attempts at hacker culture that might interest kids in technology and programming. The governments insistance that a clock is a bomb certainly isnt helping young hackers. And while you're at it, proprietary software is a huge hinderance to the type of hacker/programmer culture of sharing code.

Re:seems rather myopic of microsoft.

[gtall]

But gender is a major part of programming. Programming is essentially seen as an individual endeavor much like science. You are expected to grind out technical solutions to problems almost as puzzles. That brings with it the "individual" as the main driver, in contraposition to group science projects which are much harder to organize and require greater resources.

Girls are much more social than boys. The focus on individual effort just isn't as interesting to them. Boys can keep themselves amused for hours on something very small in the relative scheme of things because they focus on the problem. Girls just require more social interaction and the social activity is what makes something interesting, not the small problem.

The result is just what we see. Most scientists, engineers, and computer scientists are men. Most socially oriented occupations such as teaching, nursing, etc. are populated by women. As usual with the real world, most things conform to some sort of probability distribution, so there are women in science, but not a lot relative to the general pop.

Re:seems rather myopic of microsoft.

[U2xhc2hkb3QgU3Vja3M]

Boys can keep themselves amused for hours on something very small...

Well, it's not that small.

Re:BASIC? Give me a break.

[wonkey_monkey]

GOTO hell!

Re:BASIC? Give me a break.

[drinkypoo]

BASIC going away and having to pay for a development system for the computer directly impacted many would-be young programmers, and pretending that it did not is pure foolishness. Events of twenty or thirty years ago regularly affect us in the present. Microsoft gained its position and holds it through inertia; you don't think there are lasting repercussions from making it harder to get into programming?

Bizarre summary

[NotDrWho]

So it's your contention that girls left coding because MS killed BASIC in the 80's?

Seriously, dude?

Re:BASIC? Give me a break.

[110010001000]

You didn't have to pay for a development system. At the time MS offered Visual Basic Express for free (and still does AFAIK). And python was/is free, and probably a better teaching language anyway. I know you guys hate teaching kids programming because you think they are going to steal your job, but really you complain about the dumbest things. You should be complaining about manufacturers turning computers into walled gardens, which is much more harmful for all of us.

Widely-available language for beginners

[dwheeler]

The point of the article How are students learning programming in a post-Basic world? isn't that we should all use Basic. The point is that there's a need for a single 'starter' language so that people who have no experience can get started using something. That language should come with practically all computers, should be portable enough so that you can write programs that port to many computers, should be immediately accessible so beginners can quickly learn some basics, and should be useful enough so that beginners can create useful programs.

There are a number of reasonable contenders, including Python, Ruby, and Java. A version of Ruby comes with MacOS, but none of these 'just comes' with the computer regardless of what OS you run - so in most cases, before you even get started, you have to explain how to download and install something. Not ideal. Java is what a lot of people use professionally, but it does take more time to get started when you know nothing. Python has many advantages for simplicity, but you need to install it in many cases.

Perhaps the dark horse here is Javascript ES6. Javascript is available almost everywhere, and people can get started quickly. As a first language Javascript's unusual approach to OO programming (with prototyping) has probably held it back, but ES6 adds standard class notation, and that might make it much easier to use as a starter language.

Oh the irony

[Simulant]

They've been patronizing their users for years to the point where few know where their files actually are (My Docs is now a junction point) or even what they are named (file extensions hidden by default) and they bemoan a lack of computer literacy? They've done everything possible to hide how things actually work, and no, that's not a good thing.