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American Schools Teaching Kids To Code All Wrong (qz.com)
theodp writes: Over at Quartz, Globaloria CEO Idit Harel argues that American schools are teaching our kids how to code all wrong. She writes, "The light and fluffy version of computer science -- which is proliferating as a superficial response to the increased need for coders in the workplace -- is a phenomenon I refer to as 'pop computing.' While calling all policy makers and education leaders to consider 'computer science education for all' is a good thing, the coding culture promoted by Code.org and its library of movie-branded coding apps provide quick experiences of drag-and-drop code entertainment. This accessible attraction can be catchy, it may not lead to harder projects that deepen understanding." You mean the "first President to write a line of computer code" may not have progressed much beyond moving Disney Princess Elsa forward? Harel says there must be a distinction drawn between "coding tutorials" and learning "computer science." Building an app, for example, can't be done in a couple of hours, it "requires multi-dimensional learning contexts, pathways and projects." "Just as would-be musicians become proficient by listening, improvising and composing, and not just by playing other people's compositions, so would-be programmers become proficient by designing prototypes and models that work for solving real problems, doing critical thinking and analysis, and creative collaboration -- none of which can be accomplished in one hour of coding," she writes.
How about we leaving the teaching to the teachers and the armchair quarterbacks can go fuck themselves? I like that approach.
"...would-be programmers become proficient by designing prototypes and models that work for solving real problems, doing critical thinking and analysis, and creative collaboration -- none of which can be accomplished in one hour of coding..."
That's why the same approach she criticizes, if applied music, produces students that can play a paticular piece or pieces of "hard" music very well, but cannot meaningfully compose or even read music.
When it comes to coding, I prefer being introduced to the basics, then letting the student discover on their own why things work the way they do. I learned this way using Visual Basic.
I now have coded several applications in VB for people who had no idea Excel for example, could be run fully fledged business applications beyond simply adding up numbers.
Of course, the advantages of using a language that non-programmers can "pick up in a weekend" are mostly lost because you'll be working with programmers who learned to program in a weekend.
Exhibit A: Python. Exhibit B: PHP.
You want to teach coding? How about do it holistically - teach CS, and use a language like Pascal and/or Basic to teach the CS. For teens, perhaps teach from SICP.
I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
Of course one computer science class is not sufficient to turn students into programmers. Their history class is also not going to make them into historians. After all, there is nobody forcing kids to search archives for original documents! By professional standards, everything taught in school is fluffy and watered down. Harel noticed that only now, and she's outraged?
When I was in high school, (25+ years ago) we had computer programming classes. The languages they covered were BASIC, Pascal, and LOGO. Sure, you could drive a little turtle around on the screen and make pretty Spirograph pictures, but nobody used it to play chess or do their taxes. Of course, many of the students in that class went on to take university classes in computer science.
Lesson: Rudimentary programming classes are not the end-all, be-all of computing. It's just a stepping stone to let you know if you want to continue your education in that field.
It's called "hour of code" and the idea is to get kids interested in computer coding. Kids already have exposure to music, they can bang a drum, squawk a plastic recorder from the dollar store. They have exposure to sports, they can throw a ball around easily. They don't have exposure to coding in the same way. So give them an hour. It's not a PhD, but have you heard the noise those plastic instruments make?
Why is it that these tight corporate tie-ins are permitted for education? I certainly would hope that the schools wouldn't allow "Luke Skywalker and Belle teach American History", so why is the equivalent permitted for CS? Is it the fact that this is a "new" educational subject, where they're seizing the uncharted void of curriculum to get us warmed up to the idea?
If your theory is different from practice, then your theory is wrong.
https://blog.codinghorror.com/please-dont-learn-to-code/
http://techcrunch.com/2016/05/10/please-dont-learn-to-code/
So she's suggesting that a discipline that requires an (obsessive) focus on procedure, logic, math, and detail *might* not benefit from being addressed as the "flavor of the month" educational issue and magic-bulleted by an "hour of code" every week using what amounts to dumbed-down simplistic tools taught by general-ed instructors who aren't really familiar with what they're doing anyway?
Maybe we should just leave it as a profession to people that actually enjoy it and choose to do it, instead of trying to stampede kids (particularly ones with vaginas!) into it with t-shirts, media attention, and shiny prizes?
I'm going to go way out on a limb here and suggest that the kid attracted to a profession because there's balloons and cake at a few school events, is going to be pretty fucking disappointed when they realize that much of the job involves sitting for HOURS AND HOURS, alone, and thinking really hard about stuff.
-Styopa
I don't think there's really a wrong way to show kids how to code. The only wrong way would be not to show anything. (Well, it might be a bit wrong to over-complicate things, since we don't want to make them uninterested or scare them away.)
:) I was already interested enough to care about it :)
:)
I know you're mostly not interested in some john doe's life story, nevertheless, I'll give you my example, since I also was taught coding before knowing anything about CS or higher level math.
The first ever line of code I wrote was about 25 years ago in 6th grade. There was a computer club or something at our school, after classes in the afternoon, where we - a group of ~6 - were shown/taught coding in some sort of Basic on some really junk machines. I started learning CS when I started high school (in a math+CS-specialized class - meaning we had extra classes of math, phys, CS, and extra coding labs) and I never felt it a problem that I only started to know things deeper at that time. On the contrary, when we started the more "boring" part
I know some people who started this way and turned out quite OK
Point is, start early, start at a level that makes kids interested, and continue to teach them deeper stuff according to their age, gathered knowledge, and of course, interest (if there's any, not everyone has to be a CS+coder guru).
However, after a while CS needs to kreep in, since even if most companies need "normal" coders more, my unsurprising experience is that more knowledge really produces better results.
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
The one "watered down" CS element that I would like to see taught in elementary schools is the art of drawing flow charts. Now, that's something that can be useful across the board, as a tool for thinking,
But, as for the rest of it-- let the teachers figure out how to best teach.
running else into walls is really fun and you can get kids to spend hours learning stuff with a pay off like that. It's about setting the hook. Later on programming becomes fun for other reasons like the feeling of a flow state or the accomplishment of a product or the edorphin release of grocking a new algorithm that does something you thought was impossible. But you can't get to those in one step. We let kids read captain underpants before we expect them to find reading Arthur C Clark any fun. It's about progression and self motivation at an appropriate level. Not all kids will be coders but letting the ones that are find out they are is fine.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
There ARE musicians that are considered proficient who in fact did nothing but learn other people's music. Pavarotti did nothing but learn other people's music and in fact did it by ear because apparently he never learned to ear music (at least not in the beginning of his career). The great pianist Glen Gould never really became proficient in composition (he had a SINGLE work, which wasn't really a great accomplishment shortly before he died). Now are there rounded musicians, certainly. Leonard Bernstein would be a great example. Point is, the analogy given to us is flawed. Also, in programming, although we have many generically labelled "Developers" there are low level coders (generally juniors starting out who just do simple assigned tasks), UI Designers, Software Architects, Database Modellers, Data Architects, DBA's, Network Administrators, and many in between. Most start-ups have general "Developers" who are basically expected to be "Jack-of-all-trades" with the experience and rounded exposure to handle "whatever is needed at the time", but few people with less than 5 years of experience can handle that well so generally these are intermediate-senior level experienced people. While I agree to do software (or music) professionals SHOULD have a wide rounded set of skills to see the big picture and accomplish more, not every successful IT person is well rounded and these will be limited to small scope roles (although the real world doesn't always meet this idea). So I wouldn't say kids in school taught the bare basics of coding aren't taught to code "wrong" as much as in a way that will limit their advancement.
"Imagination is more important than knowledge" - Einstein
We are doing a disservice to kids by assuming that they can't grasp Differential Equations, Calculus, and Linear and Nonlinear Optimization. By limiting them, we undermine their capabilities and stifle their creative and inventive potential.
Knowledge = Power
P= W/t
t=Money
Money = Work/Knowledge so the less you know the more you make
Its probably true that more people should understand how programs work, but coding is not computer science.
It's about progression and self motivation at an appropriate level.
True but it must also be educational at an appropriate level of rigour. The problem with a lot of school education today is that making it fun becomes the primary goal and maintaining educational standards comes in second. This leads to the erosion of educational standards very rapidly - just look at the appalling level of maths education in schools in the UK, Canada and the US today. The correct order of priority is to determine what needs to be taught and after that determine how to teach it in the most engaging way possible: this last part is where the teachers are the experts. If you can't come up with an engaging way to teach it then you just do the best you can.