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Disney Thinks High Schools Should Let Kids Take Coding In Place of Foreign Languages
theodp writes:
Florida lawmakers are again proposing a contentious plan that would put coding and foreign language on equal footing in a public high school student's education. Under a proposed bill students who take two credits of computer coding and earn a related industry certification could then count that coursework toward two foreign language credits.
"I sort of comically applaud that some would want to categorize coding as a foreign language," said Miami-Dade Schools Superintendent Alberto Carvalho. "Coding cannot be seen as an equivalent substitute." Disclosure records show that Walt Disney Parks and Resorts has three lobbyists registered to fight in support of the bill. Disney did not return an email seeking comment, but State Senator Jeff Brandes said the company's interest is in a future workforce... Disney has provided signature tutorials for the nation's Hour of Code over the past three years, including Disney's Frozen princess-themed tutorial.
"I sort of comically applaud that some would want to categorize coding as a foreign language," said Miami-Dade Schools Superintendent Alberto Carvalho. "Coding cannot be seen as an equivalent substitute." Disclosure records show that Walt Disney Parks and Resorts has three lobbyists registered to fight in support of the bill. Disney did not return an email seeking comment, but State Senator Jeff Brandes said the company's interest is in a future workforce... Disney has provided signature tutorials for the nation's Hour of Code over the past three years, including Disney's Frozen princess-themed tutorial.
Seriously, it's a brilliant idea to replace math with coding, because computer science is technically applied mathematics, and everyone already hates math, but everyone hopes to bullshit their way to a billion dollars as a coder.
So, if you look at the foreign language requirement for what it is (an "expand your mind" requirement), then it is plainly obvious that coding achieves the same objective.
Joel Spolsky,in his rant on Java Schools, sort of touches on this:
Heck, in 1900, Latin and Greek were required subjects in college, not because they served any purpose, but because they were sort of considered an obvious requirement for educated people. In some sense my argument is no different that the argument made by the pro-Latin people (all four of them). âoe[Latin] trains your mind. Trains your memory. Unraveling a Latin sentence is an excellent exercise in thought, a real intellectual puzzle, and a good introduction to logical thinking,â writes Scott Barker. But I canâ(TM)t find a single university that requires Latin any more. Are pointers and recursion the Latin and Greek of Computer Science?
Granted, he is arguing for CS students always having to learn fundamental CS concepts like pointers and recursion, but I think that it is not too much of a stretch to think that coding will eventually become the Latin and Greek of our culture. Everybody should have to learn a bit of it if they want to consider themselves well educated and well rounded, and a small number will choose to specialize in it as a field of endeavor.
And if you are thinking to yourself, "Well, what's the point, they won't remember any of it?" Please go find any random middle aged person whose only exposure to foreign language was their 2 year requirement in high school and ask them how much Spanish, French, German, etc. they remember? Hint: their high school foreign language class didn't make them an expert in the foreign language, so would two years of programming in high school be seen as any less valuable from a macro-pedagogic perspective?
I've done the same twice basically.
Ohio has a "State Honors Diploma" that requires 6 out of 7 criteria: 4 yrs Math, English, Science, 3yrs Social Studies, Foreign Language, 27 on the ACT (or some # I forget on SAT), 3.5+ GPA (there might be/have been 1 more criteria but either way you could only lose out on 1) ... And I got my state honors diploma by getting 27 on the ACT (and pissing off my '"guidance counselor" by proving her wrong and actually qualifying b/c she was a cunt... and pushed people to Foreign Languages....(I suspect some kind of bonus pay program... but I digress...)
Then skip a few years later....
I signed up for Japanese and then the next year they didn't offer it, so my only hope (I've had issues with foreign languages since middle school) was to register as 'disabled' due to having ADHD, and get them to waive Foreign Language requirement.(I never bothered to sign up before with the school (I had to take IQ test, and other tests to have their doctors agree that I was ADHD) because I don't -personally- consider myself disabled...
I already had a full ride offer from UC Berkeley, U of Illinois Champaign/Urbana, and Vanderbilt University for their CS Program, was in the honors program (took additional classes and did additional work and was ready to get summa cum laude on top of that... but was missing a Foreign Language credit...
Long story short... I got a waiver, the next year the Dean of the STEM college used me as an example of "foreign language is a great skill, but not one everyone should need for STEM field" and they changed the entire policy for the STEM college.
I would LOVE to be able to learn a foreign language... but it is unbelievably hard for me... (I start to forget new words after the first 500 or so) and am HIGHLY functional without it. (I've also tried to learn Spanish for 4 years, Japanese for 2, Chinese for 1... with no luck... to see if maybe it was just an issue with one of the languages... to no avail...)
Now... should Foreign Language be a -requirement- for high school students... No, It should be offered, and even encouraged, but not required. I'll be the first to sing the praises of knowing more languages. But we should just drop the requirement and also add in basic computer literacy and usage (including some basic coding) ... But I don't think they should be tied together. They are both worth doing... but I'm a perfect example of someone who can code in a couple dozen programming languages but isn't good with foreign languages.... (Programming languages generally only have ~50 keywords and often they are the same "if, goto, while, case, etc."
I've heard this argument before:
Typing is not for everyone and not everyone will gain even a modest benefit from learning to type. Furthermore this shit is going to be done by speech to text software over the coming decade or two.
Math is not for everyone and not everyone will gain even a modest benefit from learning Math. Furthermore this is shit that is better left to mathematicians coming decade or two.
Writing is not for everyone and not everyone will gain even a modest benefit from learning Math. Furthermore this is shit that is better left to nobility.
Yes.
The false equivalence I keep seeing on Slashdot is they think that this aimed to turn out more professional coders and they're scared someone is going to come after their niche CS jobs.
I'm a mechanical engineer that can code. You can pat yourself on the back that your job is never going to be taken over by me, nor would I want it. However I do code 40 hours a week, what gives? I use coding to automate mechanical engineering work. At times it get used as a Maslow's hammer, but it gets the job done faster than sitting and doing it manually or throwing a hundred interns on a project.
Latest party trick is to use CNNs to classify plots. 10 years ago I'd make a dozen plots and my boss, I and a few co-workers would study them in a meeting and go "aha, that plot means X". But with the amount of data we're collecting and the amount of plots we're making it'd take a full, tedious week of analyzing them. So I'm treating it as a picture and throwing a spare GPU at it. Inefficient? Probably. Not the ideal solution? Probably Not. Does it work? Yes. But it's fast and I can teach my boss and co-workers how to classify something a handful of times and let the machine do it forever beyond that.
This initiative isn't to turn out more coders, it's to turn out more ____ that can code. Small Business Accountants are still doing voodoo with Excel to automate their jobs, just a tiny amount of Python would make them much, much more efficient and productive. This is across the board of professions. Just like years ago someone got the smart idea to teach students how to type even though companies were employing typists at that time to do that. Turns out it's much faster to just have a person type up what they want themselves than spend the time trying to get a typist to do it.
And the jobs that require a full CS degree are still going to be there, they aren't going anywhere, you can stop freaking out every time we want to teach kids something new. I do expect to see "Python" along side "MS Word" when it comes to most job requirements in the next few decades.
Of the people who know Latin, only the idiots who didn't learn enough of it to read well ever say that one needs to learn Latin as an intellectual puzzle. The rest of us appreciate the ability to pick up and read literary (and scientific and historical) texts from medieval and early modern Europe (and dissertations up to the early twentieth century from some European universities) no matter what the nationality or native tongue of the author. The surviving Latin-language output of the sixteenth century alone is two or three orders of magnitude (yes, really) the size of all the literature surviving from the ancient world, and most of it was never translated into English. You don't learn Latin to learn a puzzle: you learn it as a key to unlocking vast libraries of literature that most people don't know ever existed. There's a long, eighteenth-century epic poem (the Rusticatio Mexicana) on the hardworking people of Mexico and their oppression by Europeans. There are treatises on state action against non-state actors (like Grotius' De iure piratarum) that still have an impact on international law and the controversial idea of treating terrorists as hostes humani generis. There are histories of the Americas, Africa, Asia, even the early Jesuit visits to China and Japan, all in Latin, and not translated into English. When you learn Latin well enough actually to read it, without puzzling over it or needing a dictionary, you open yourself up to being able to discover vast swaths of human intellect and history to which you have no access otherwise.
Work coding into math courses, if not, out right replace some. There has to be a way to teach programming that allows for students to also pick up all of the concepts taught in algebra courses.
Would the elite in this country stand for it being done in the prestigious prep schools they send their offspring to? If not, it's no good for your kids either.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Understanding other cultures is crucial for international trade relationships. Have you ever tried to seal a deal in China without understanding their customs? I tell you, don't even try. Sure, you'll get your deal. Chinese never say no. But be prepared to get ripped a new one in the process. Never make a deal with a Chinese without first having spent an evening with him going from bar to bar and strip club to strip club. And yes, you pay. Show him what you got, they don't deal with beggars and miserly nobodies!
Or try the same in the Arab world. You call them? They won't even talk to you. Face to face or not at all. They want to look into your eyes when they seal a deal, very important! And again, show what you got, because he'll do the same. Be careful with praises, you might get to exchange "gifts" you didn't want to exchange...
Germany? Be punctual. 5 minutes late and you better have a GOOD reason. "Traffic jam" might work, but for the first meeting, be early. Make your presentation snappy and without bells and whistles. Germans are pretty much their stereotype until you get to know them. If you get invited to an "evening out", jackpot! Do not make the mistake and decline, even if you're jetlaggy, even if you're about to throw up, this is your foot in the door, now kick it open. And unlike the Japanese, what happens during the night is still valid the next morning, if you're buddy, you stay buddy. Small gifts are appreciated but don't overdo it, also don't be disappointed if they decline, most corporations in Germany have strict rules what their representatives may accept.
And so on. And ALL THIS you can actually "feel" when you get to know the language. Chinese is a very tonal language that smells of emotion, and German is the exact opposite. And the people are like their languages. If you want to know the people, learn their languages.
Not to mention that people usually LOVE it if you try to speak their language. Even and especially if you can't do it well. It makes them feel superior and appreciated at the same time. Try it! A few key words and phrases (like "please", "thank you", "yes" and "no", along with relevant gestures where applicable) go a LONG way, even if you're just a tourist asking for directions.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.