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.

Comments

Funniest thing ever.

[Anonymous Coward]

Donald Trump executive order generator.
http://hepwori.github.io/execo...

Re:Funniest thing ever.

[Opportunist]

Hey! That's only for OFFICIAL use!

No

[negRo_slim]

Coding is not for everyone and not everyone will gain even a modest benefit from learning coding. Furthermore this shit is going to be highly automated over the coming decade or two. We need to teach kids stuff to make them well rounded, not just a fucking outdated cog.

Re:No

[MightyMartian]

I think my bigger issue is that programming languages and spoken human languages are two rather different thing. While both are "languages" in that they are descriptive, structured and functional, they really serve pretty vastly different purposes, and I'm not at all sure one gains the same value from coding as from foreign languages.

Re:No

[ElectraFlarefire]

Expose every kid to programming? Sure! Force every kid to 'be able to program' no.
Treat it like Ceramics or Drama.. A pass should be 'I did the exercises and now I know what it's like'.
And like those subjects, those who really like it/are good at it will continue on and do the 'real' programming/CS subjects. Those who have no affinity at all for it can move on to what they are good at.

Re:No

[0100010001010011]

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.

Re:No

[JaredOfEuropa]

I think everyone should at least be taught basic coding, just as everyone should be taught basic calculus, art, biography, poetry, some foreign language or two, music, physics, shop, etcetera. Enough to know what it's about, and enough to find out if you might like learning more or even be good at it. The goal is not to become good at it, at this stage, but to become well rounded as you state. Learning a little coding is definitely part of that in this day and age.

I'm not sure if schools should be serious about offering in-depth follow-up courses for coding, though. And coding should certainly not replace language classes or credits.

Re: No

[0100010001010011]

Hardly anyone takes typing

How old are you? Because I had it 3 times. Elementary school (which was a private school), once in 7th grade and then again in 10th. Prior to that people that graduated mostly couldn't type and weren't at all prepared for the workforce at the time. This is back when you could proudly put your WPM and the fact that you knew how to use Wordperfect AND MS Office on your Resume.

Math is required K-12.

Now it is. Once upon the a time math was reserved for a certain class.

Writing is required K-12.

Now it is. Once upon a time not everyone got to learn how to read and write.

In 50 years I expect some one whining when adding Quantum Computing to the K-12 curriculum and you Luddites to have the exact same arguments as to why kids don't need to be learning it.

Re:No

[rtb61]

Close but not quite there. The problem is there is no basic coding language. It would be like teaching 4 completely different versions of Japanese (not far off the mark) and to make it even more interesting, new versions could come out and old versions die. Before anything can be done about teaching a computer programming language a new one needs to be designed from the ground up that much more closely aligns to the English language and the language of mathematics including it symbol. It should not be some bullshit excuse to feed billions in profits into some shit company like M$.

New language, free of copyright and patents and that adheres to rules of English and maths. Until them the corporate douche bag, ass hat, greedy fuckwits can bugger off.

Re: No

[innocent_white_lamb]

Back in the dim mists of time I took Typing Class in high school. This was in the 70's, so we learned on huge Underwood manual office typewriters.

The most useful thing I learned in school outside of basic reading and writing was Typing Class. No joke.

Re: No

[Jetstream]

Same here. As things have turned out (for me & for the world of work), typing has been more useful to me than my math classes. (aside from learning basic math, that is. :) Of course, I also come from the era when I was able to take drivers ed. in high school, so maybe THAT was slightly more important than typing.

Re: No

[sound vision]

If they weren't teaching "reading, writing, and rithmetic" in the 1950s, what did they teach? Or are you talking about the 1850s?

Re: No

[0100010001010011]

in the 1950s,

Turns out education is something that goes back thousands of years. Look beyond the 50s at how things have been done.

Re:No

[CaptainDork]

This.

I give lectures on the matter.

It's like requiring every student to learn how to play the violin.

The end result is predictable in both cases:

1.) Most will never forgive the mother fuckers who made them do that
2.) Many will do whatever it takes to squeeze by
3.) Many more will simply never learn a note or line
4.) A few will be mediocre
5.) .001% will be prodigies

America is moving to a service economy, and globalizing.

There's much more need to speak to diversity.

Re: No

[fluffernutter]

Should we be teaching kids to cook over an open fire too? At a certain point it becomes ridiculous to look that far back.

Re:No

[AHuxley]

What is the next generation of nurses, hairdressers, mechanics, carpenters, teachers, plumbers, electricians going to do with more computing they had to learn?
Their later job is going to give them very unique, often expensive computer related hardware and software products they will learn with their trade or profession.
If they have to know how to write code it will be very unique to that profession and often on closed hardware with very expensive and advanced complex software.
Nations put decades into teaching everyone Pascal, Basic, Ada, C or some other educational or emerging school or enter level university trendy programming language.
Do the office staff, cleaners, carpenters need that for the funding national governments had to find to try and place a computer in front of every student?
A year after they learned their trade or profession? They had home computers, cell phones, pagers... technology changed and was all ready for use as sold at a low price.
Moving limited funding to computer and robots for all students will just take away from math, science, language funding for the few students who will go onto to full scholarships or who can afford a loan or have family wealth for a real computer science related university education.
The only winners are the brands selling support for GUI, robots to schools and the big US brands virtue signalling with their brands all over educational material.

Art, languages, what was home economics and shop class all provided a different educational pathway for a lot of very average students to learn something they could pass and really enjoyed. Sitting in front of a robot and moving GUI puzzle parts around to simulate computer code is great for teachers to feel like they are helping all students for the app future... just like Pascal, Basic, Ada, C was... for all the new high tech jobs.

If a big US brand wants skilled workers, support skilled students. Test them all early and often, support the students who can do math and pass tests. Get them into the best universities and then offer them a real wage to attract them to your brand.
Robots and GUI code for all students will not ensure a flow of super cheap, "smart" workers. If a brand wants more smart workers, pay a real wage for that profession and attract the best workers.

Re: No

[johanw]

Only after they have mastered to make a fire by heating up 2 pieces of wood by friction.

Re: No

[0100010001010011]

Good point, lets teach kids to code.

Re:No

[johanw]

The voters in the last election disagree.

Re: No

[myowntrueself]

If they weren't teaching "reading, writing, and rithmetic" in the 1950s, what did they teach? Or are you talking about the 1850s?

The 'rithmetic' they taught in the 1950s hardly counts as mathematics, better described as numeracy; being numerically literate, being able to do long division and memorise multiplication tables ie skills that were often useful in everyday life.

Re:No

[Michael Woodhams]

I think everyone (or nearly everyone) should be taught a minimal amount of coding, not so that they can code, but so that they can appreciate what coding can do (and so they can decide whether they are interested in learning more.)

Here is a parable.
Lecturer was approached by Researcher. Researcher was working with DNA sequences and had received a large computer file with many thousands of DNA sequences. These sequences all had a few characters at the beginning and end which were artefacts of the amplification and sequencing process, and needed to be removed before the sequences could be used by the next stage in the process. This was the second such file Researcher had worked with - the previous time, Researcher had spent about a month editing the file in a text editor to remove the surplus characters. Now they dreaded having to do it again, and hoped Lecturer could provide a better way. Lecturer promptly solved the problem in under a minute with a one line Unix command.

Had Researcher had an idea of what programming can do, they'd have sought this help when they received the first file, and saved a month of extreme drudgery. (Incidentally, this really happened, my current boss was Lecturer.)

I present here (not for the first time) the Woodhams Hierarchy of Epistemological Categories:
1) Stuff that you know
2) Stuff that you know where to find out
3) Stuff that you know that somebody knows
3a) Stuff that you know that nobody knows (a category irrelevant to this discussion but important to scientists.)
4) Stuff you know nothing about
(Compare to the Rumsfeld Epistemological Categories.)

In the parable, 'how to best modify these DNA sequences' was initially in category 4 for Researcher, but would have been category 3 if they'd ever done some simple programming. The difference between category 4 and category 3 cost them a month. The difference between category 3 and category 1 cost them perhaps 20 minutes - instead of writing the one-liner themselves, they had to find somebody who could write it for them. This pattern is typical - when considering shifts in categories (from 4 to 3, from 3 to 2, and from 2 to 1) the benefit of shift 4 to 3 is greatest, and the cost (i.e. acquiring the knowledge) is lowest.

To be a functioning person, you need stuff in category 1, but people usually undervalue categories 2 and 3, which can cover very much more knowledge than you can fit in category 1.

Re:No

[Michael Woodhams]

I agree with this.

Re:No

[Anonymous Coward]

This.

I give lectures on the matter.

It's like requiring every student to learn how to play the violin.

In other words, not "this" at all. Since this is about giving students the choice to take a coding class instead of taking a foreign language class.

Re: No

[Anonymous Coward]

Turns out education is something that goes back thousands of years.

Even a slave can learn mathematics - Plato, ca. 400 BCE.

Re:No

[geekmux]

Coding is not for everyone and not everyone will gain even a modest benefit from learning coding. Furthermore this shit is going to be highly automated over the coming decade or two. We need to teach kids stuff to make them well rounded, not just a fucking outdated cog.

Speaking of outdated cog, makes you wonder how many people really remember how to speak a foreign language, even after getting two years of it shoved down their throats back in high school.

Not trying to take away from your point at all, merely highlighting the actual value of teaching any language to the masses.

Re:No

[CaptainDork]

The voters in the last election were undereducated white Evangelical Christian women in goddam Rust Belt

Trump also appealed to many women who feared downward mobility and poverty, winning a majority of women without college degrees, as well as rural women. He denounced the trade deals that they felt had wrecked their economies, and vowed to create jobs by rebuilding America’s decaying infrastructure. Meanwhile, Clinton partied with her funders in the Hamptons. She represented an out-of-touch elite, and many women felt that deeply and resented her – or simply didn’t care about her campaign.

The only "code" dey hab id ind der dose.

Re:No

[K. S. Kyosuke]

and I'm not at all sure one gains the same value from coding as from foreign languages.

You don't say... ;-)

Re:No

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Chances are that many people will accidentally generate more programs than ceramic objects in their later jobs, though. At least starting with spreadsheets.

Re:No

[Gorobei]

There is a lot of commonality in learning to fly airplanes and masturbate. Unlike the parent, I'll spare you two paragraphs of pointless anecdotes about my life.

Re:No

[Gorobei]

I present here (not for the first time) the Woodhams Hierarchy of Epistemological Categories:
1) Stuff that you know
2) Stuff that you know where to find out
3) Stuff that you know that somebody knows
3a) Stuff that you know that nobody knows (a category irrelevant to this discussion but important to scientists.)
4) Stuff you know nothing about

So, about the same as:

1) I have drugs
2) I know where to buy drugs
3) I have a friend who can get me drugs
3a) I have drugs, and my friends don't know I do
4) I have no drugs, and have no idea how to score them

Re:No

[Michael Woodhams]

I think
3) I know what drugs I want
3a) Nobody makes the drugs I want any more

"Dope gets you through times with no money better than money gets you through times with no dope." - FFFB

Re: No

[ChrisMaple]

when adding Quantum Computing to the K-12 curriculum

It sounds like serious technological confusion, that you think Quantum Computing would be a subject separate from computing when taught in a K-12 context.

High speed typing is of minor usefulness in a job whose major requirement is creative thinking.

Re:No

[rkordmaa]

Math is not for everyone and not everyone will gain even a modest benefit from learning math. Furthermore this shit has been highly automated over the past decade or two. Yet we still teach kids math, programming is much the same, one could even generalize and say that programming is just a branch of discrete math, a very useful branch at that.

Re:No

[tgv]

> The problem is there is no basic coding language.

Yes, there is. And it's called, drum roll, BASIC. Perfect language for kids to learn one or two things about programming. For programming, the important thing is to learn to express yourself explicitly. The language itself is not that important. Only the talented ones will continue anyway, and they should learn other languages, and preferably other styles (functional, logical).

However, I agree that it's total nonsense to give up foreign language education over programming.

Re:No

[Dog-Cow]

The purpose of learning a foreign language in HS is not to become fluent. It's to expand ones thinking and understanding. As we know from 1984, language shapes the way we think, and even what we can think about. Exposure to other languages also brings exposure to other cultures and other perspectives.

Re:No

[Opportunist]

Quite frankly, if human languages were more like (imperative) programming languages, the world would feel a bit like an interrogation chamber. All you get is blunt questions, orders and false dichotomies.

Re:No

[Opportunist]

Math is a really bad example in this context, since I cannot think of a job where you can get away with knowing NO math whatsoever. At least not if you want to make more than minimum wage. In comparison, there's plenty of jobs that can net you six or seven digits that require no programming skills or even a rudimentary understanding of computers.

Take a look at legislation and tell me lawyers need to know anything about computers!

Re: No

[Opportunist]

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.

Re:No

[Opportunist]

Coding ain't so different from selling drugs. Both have "users", both deal their stuff to people who usually have no idea just WHAT shit they are getting into or what quality they'll get to deal with before it's too late, people who also usually use it wrong or in some weird way nobody thought of (and thus get damaged), both don't take any liability for any damage that happens to their users, both have rather unusual sleep patterns,...

Re: No

[Opportunist]

With all due respect, but you have to learn English just to have a common communication language with the other German speaking countries...

Re:No

[AmiMoJo]

Decades ago students had to learn Latin. It was a requirement for entry to some universities, and mandatory in some schools. It's completely useless as a language, being dead and all, but it taught logical thinking and reasoning. It proved that the student could apply themselves, and gave them useful skills that they could apply to other things.

These days people use an undergrad degree in the same way. A degree in botany might not be very relevant to being an account manager, but it's proof that the person can motivate themselves and study to undergrad level.

Now we have programming languages that teach logic and reasoning, but are also actually useful and applicable in the real world. We should definitely be teaching kids a computer language. We should also teach skills to help them be good citizens and members of a democracy, such as reasoning and debating skills so they have to tools to evaluate what they read and hear.

Re:No

[AmiMoJo]

1.) Most will never forgive the mother fuckers who made them do that

This applies to most schooling. It's not dissimilar to an open prison. You have to turn up every day, have to do what the stiffs tell you, get punished if you don't.

Occasionally students find that they enjoy something, and generally accept their fate and try to make the best of it, but for the most part it's just year after year of being forced to do stuff you don't want to do. So pretty much like being an adult really.

Therefore we shouldn't base decisions about what to teach on if students will like it or not. Some will, some won't, and at least with coding you can make it interesting and immediately obvious how it can be applied to the real world.

Re:No

[coofercat]

1.) Most will never forgive the mother fuckers who made them do that

If that means more people will hate Disney, then I can't see a downside. What qualifies Disney to decide/influence education policy? What's next? Defence strategy by Mattel? Social security policy by Lockheed Martin?

Re:No

[i.r.id10t]

I took Latin for my foreign language credits in high school, mid-80s. It was either that or French....

Re:No

[houghi]

A pass should be 'I did the exercises and now I know what it's like'.

Depends on the age. But I would rather see that there is a general aproach to learning.
Not so much basic knowledge, but thinking.
That would need more qualified teachers and that would mean more monies.

Re:No

[Cro Magnon]

The only "understanding" I got from my foreign languages in HS was just how terrible foreign language learning is! Though, TBF, my own experience was unusually bad, even by American HS foreign language standards.

Re:No

[PRMan]

Foreign languages are infinitely more useful in life than Trig and Calculus, which 99.9% of people will never use (I'm a software architect, and I've never used them). Why don't we put them in place of that instead. But until they stop teaching fake languages like Processing and Scratch instead of Java, Javascript, C# or something actually useful, who really cares? CS is dumbed down so much now as to be completely useless. My daughter dropped her AP CS class in high school not because it was too hard, but because it was too easy and wasn't teaching her anything useful!

Re: No

[bfpierce]

And none of those languages are offered at most public schools, not one of them.

Fucking Arabic in 7th grade? Are you daft or do you have no knowledge of the typical American HS student?

Re: No

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't get any of that from 2 semesters of memorizing call/response chains, which is what high school language classes generally are in practice.

You have to continue on past the required amount of education to get to where you're exposed to media past sesame street level, and even then talking with otehr Americans (your classmates) in Japanese won't impart much Japanese culture as you won't be challenging each other's assumptions.

If you want to reach culture to the average student it'd make more sense to start with translated media as the language takes a lot longer to learn and isn't actually the essential part. Rather the behavior of the people is. Language can be picked up later by those who're actually interested in going overseas.

Re:No

[CaptainDork]

Waste of characters.

The short version is "pussy grabber."

Re:No

[CaptainDork]

I see your deflection and assign you 17 debating demerits.

Facebook, Microsoft, Apple and Google are doing the same thing.

The goal is to have our education system fail to supply a qualified workforce so corporations can obtain talent from overseas.

The dodge is predictable, "Hey ... we tried to make your stupid kid qualified."

Re:No

[CaptainDork]

... and at least with coding you can make it interesting ...

That's not my hand-on experience.

Most kids do not want to code.

They want to play with code that's polished and finished. They're called, "apps."

It's like saying we can teach auto mechanics and make it interesting by letting kids polish the dip sticks

And, I totally disagree with:

So pretty much like being an adult really.

Adults, unlike kids, have disposable income, an entertainment budget, freedom to roam about, and down time to pursue their passions.

Adults can (it takes years) wash off the crap like the requirement to say the Pledge of Allegiance every fucking goddam morning in lock step with the Party line.

It took me many years to to flush out the mind-numbing effect of school and teach myself the difference between bullshit and wild honey.

Re:No

[Bengie]

The problem is the lack of "real" programming classes and the false sense of accomplishment a child can get from "doing well" in the fake programming class. You can balance on one leg?! You're going to be a great gymnast! The even bigger problem is the crazy high amount of Dunning–Kruger effect going on in the programming industry as a whole. Someone may not know they're bad at programming until it's too late.

Letting children try new things to see if it's not only something they like, but something they do well at is a great idea. The elephant in the room is the "doing well at" part. Even CS professors at ivy league Universities are pretty much all saying that 80% of their graduates should not do programming, but they can't fail them because they technically passed. And that 80% is already after the first 80% of failed to graduate. This means that about 96% of people who apply for programming can't or shouldn't. And that's after weeding out all of the other people by having high requirements just to apply.

Then you have the other elephant in the room. Dunning–Kruger effect is a side-effect of a lack of meta-cognition, which is intern a lack of fluid intelligence, which is required for abstract reasoning, deductive reasoning, and inductive reasoning. Of which all 3 are fundamental requirements for any good programmer. There are no known ways to increase fluid intelligence, only ways to get better at specific fluid-intelligence tests, but the benefits are non-transferable, aka don't actually help.

As far as we can tell, increasing fluid intelligence requires meta-cognition to recognize what you don't know and why you are failing, but at the same time, it takes high enough fluid intelligence to have the meta-cognition to do so. It's a catch-22 where people below a threshold have virtually zero ability and those above it are exponentially better for small improvements.

If we want children with better fluid intelligence, one possible way is we need to start them very young on being very introspective about their own thoughts and reasoning.

Re:No

[lsatenstein]

Agree with you

I know three languages. I started learning the second (French) at age 50 and the third at 60. And with each additional language, I found I could do a better job of problem solving. Moreover, I opened up parts of my brain to accept multiculturalism and new ways of solving problems.

If you are Disney, you want skilled programmers. You really don't care if they are skilled humans.

Re: No

[MooseTick]

All that sounds good, but they don't teach "strip club" etiquette in high school Chinese/German.

Re: No

[Radiophobic]

At the rate things are going, in 50 years time, most of the educational curriculum will be trades after grade 7. Kids aren't going to need to learn computing unless they want to focus on that or have an aptitude. Likewise with math or any of the sciences. There will be a strong focus on applied languages and history.

Re: No

[0100010001010011]

Good. That's how most countries with trades still do it. We need to get away from this EVERYONE NEEDS ALL THESE CLASSES that we have in the US.

Somewhere along the line "Trades" became a dirty word and everyone was shoved into college and it's been a failure. That said, the trades of 2050 aren't going to look like the trades of 1950. I expect IT and most Coding to be a trade route. If you have interest and aptitude in an IT career you start working half days at 14-15 doing hands on learning and the other half in the class room learning what you need to know. Then IT can get what they've been complaining about with a strong trade union.

Re: No

[Opportunist]

Hey, he has selected worse for more important positions!

Re: No

[Opportunist]

They better start soon, or do you want the Chinese to take over our dominant position? Do you?

Re: No

[Dagger2]

Depends on what you mean by "high speed typing". If you're hunt and peck typing, that's definitely going to get in the way of a programming job. Not only does it slow down your code writing, it also affects your ability to write documentation and to take part in email/IM conversations. Time spent on painstakingly typing your code out is time you can't spend doing more creative thinking or other tasks that matter.

Of course there's a point of limited returns (I doubt going from, let's say, 50 WPM to 100 WPM is going to help massively), but there's a point where you're going to be I/O bound enough that it's going to be significant.

Re:No

[michael_wojcik]

Writing is not for everyone and not everyone will gain even a modest benefit from learning [to write]. Furthermore this is shit that is better left to nobility.

At what historical moment was literacy the province of the nobility? I can't think of a historical culture where it wasn't either widespread (a modern phenomenon[1]) or largely confined to a clerical class. Who were most assuredly not "the nobility".

Your claim about mathematics is pretty specious too. While mathematical learning has a complex history in any culture I can think of, I can't think of a single historical instance where that particular claim was the dominant ideological stance on it.

Of course your overall argument is a pretty weak argument by analogy, even if we accept these claims. And as far as I can see, more people here are arguing that basic coding should be part of the required curriculum, just not a substitute for learning a natural language.

[1] Which means "a few centuries old" in some parts of the world, of course. Indeed one of the hallmarks of a middle class is its adoption of literacy and other information technologies.

Re:No

[GuB-42]

If you argument that coding is meaningless because it will be automated, you probably don't understand what lies behind coding.
What a programmer do is convert vague ideas into something well defined so that the computer can understand. For example the customer will ask for a calculator with number buttons and operators. The programmer will break the problem in small pieces and deal with the details like how the numbers should be stored, what happens when a number overflows, etc... This kind of thinking is independent of the language or code generator.
And programming languages just happen be very effective for this kind of work. User friendly code generators exist and will certainly improve but they are typically limited to a narrow scope. To use the more versatile tool, you start running into the same problems coders have, and soon enough, you will actually want to write code.
Learning coding at a young age, can, I think, teach problem solving skill that may become useful in many fields.

It's like saying that foreign languages will become useless with automatic translators. That's forgetting the part about the culture and mind opening that goes with it. Of course, I also think that replacing foreign language with coding is retarded. The only thing the have in common is the word "language".

Re: No

[CaptainDork]

... but they're not known for it.

Just because YOU don't know about it.

404 results for "computer", where country="United States"

Re:No

[Bengie]

Coding is orthogonal to programming. Just wait until AIs are doing the coding for the programmers. Coding is just the act of translating ideas into a language that computers understand. Or as "Uncle Bob" says, the code is just the exact detailed requirements. Programming is the act of creating those requirements.

What's with this fixation?

[Black Parrot]

Do companies and billionerds really think this "teach everyone to code" is going to produce a more capable workforce? What's their angle - drive wages down?

Re:What's with this fixation?

[0100010001010011]

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.

Re:What's with this fixation?

[0100010001010011]

And that's where the current crop of jobs are as well:

Searching for dSpace/Python jobs around Detroit: https://www.indeed.com/jobs?q=...

http://www.jobjuncture.com/job...">Here's one that pays well:

Requires Python, C, C++, Ethernet UDP, and a whole host of other 'programming' even if the primary role of the job isn't a coder.

And here's an embedded controls job that requires knowledge of programming on top of the engineering.

So to all those wondering where the jobs are, I question if you're 1) looking 2) have relevant job skills. If you're the coding equivalent of a 'keyboardist' then yes, you are going to have a hard time finding jobs going forward. Otherwise, you shouldn't be worried.

Re: What's with this fixation?

[Anonymous Coward]

You clueless bastard. Those "jobs" are mandatory probings of local market by headhunting agencies. Even if you apply and take an interview - you will NOT be hired due to lack of some bullshit skill. Instead they will hire an H1B monkey.

Re:What's with this fixation?

[geek]

Do companies and billionerds really think this "teach everyone to code" is going to produce a more capable workforce? What's their angle - drive wages down?

It's doubly confusing since all they want to do is outsource them once they've learned to code. It's fucking ridiculous.

If Disney cared so fucking much why did they outsource an entire department of competent IT workers to India? It's not like Disney is hurting for cash.

Re: What's with this fixation?

[0100010001010011]

Search for the ones where sponsorship is not available. The jobs are there. They're looking for people and have been for years.

Don't blame the fact that you don't have the relevant skills on H1Bs.

you will NOT be hired

So the people I know that have been don't exist?

Re: What's with this fixation?

[Anonymous Coward]

Even worse is when policy requires mandatory posting of a job opening for an internal promotion. The opening doesn't even exist, and no one will be hired, but it's the only way to give a raise to an existing employee. You can usually spot fake listings for internal promotion if the requirements are vague but include an oddly specific number of years experience.

Re: What's with this fixation?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you personally have not been job searching recently you are in no position of advising about it.

"The people you know" is a hearsay.

I am telling you my first hand experience - most job openings are bullcrap.

Re:What's with this fixation?

[TWX]

It's doubly confusing since all they want to do is outsource them once they've learned to code. It's fucking ridiculous.

If Disney cared so fucking much why did they outsource an entire department of competent IT workers to India? It's not like Disney is hurting for cash.

That was what immediately came to mind. Their attitude toward hiring Unisys as a way to skirt the H1B laws (ie, contracting to another company and letting that company, with no prior American workers, make the claims about availability in order to justify the foreign workers) seems to run exactly opposite to what they've now said.

I'd like to see the H1B laws for IT work be changed to disallow the use of H1B for butts-in-seats, regardless of what abstraction layer results in paying the end-worker.

Re:What's with this fixation?

[myowntrueself]

Do companies and billionerds really think this "teach everyone to code" is going to produce a more capable workforce? What's their angle - drive wages down?

It's doubly confusing since all they want to do is outsource them once they've learned to code. It's fucking ridiculous.

If Disney cared so fucking much why did they outsource an entire department of competent IT workers to India? It's not like Disney is hurting for cash.

Maybe Disney want to make school even more boring so kids will crave more Disney produced entertainment at home?

Heres a clue for the programmers on /. honestly although you might not believe it nor understand it, programming is boring for most people.

Foreign languages open up a LOT more entertainment possibilities than programming; listening to music with vocals in other languages, literature and movies in other languages, being able to engage with other human beings in other languages. Even foreign language classrooms are more entertaining than in programming classrooms because its about HUMAN CONTACT. Social interaction drives almost all actual fun and entertainment for the majority of human beings ie people who are more or less heteronormative and not on the autism spectrum.

So yeah, Disney is being sneaky as fuck yet again and trying to make school even more boring to drive up their own revenues. I could believe it.

Re: What's with this fixation?

[0100010001010011]

recently

Want to quantify that so it makes it harder to move the goalposts?

And most recently I've been reverse job searching. That's where I get poached by competitors because I have the buzzwords. Start looking at job listings needing dSpace, Vector Tools (CANape / CANalyzer), or Simulink.

Re:What's with this fixation?

[sound vision]

I doubt a "small business accountant" would benefit much from learning Python. I have a hard time imagining a good chunk of their time is spent doing things that Python could automate (but Excel can't). What, specifically, does Python provide to a small business accountant that Excel doesn't?

Re:What's with this fixation?

[high_rolla]

No,

What you have to realise is that Disney has already created 'Hour of Code' activities which are really not much more than adverts for Disney franchises. In fact, incredibly effective adverts as you have to interact with them. Now they want those "adverts" to be a part of every students classwork all the time so encouraging all students to have to learn to code/ have to play with your adverts is incredibly powerful.

I really believe Disney couldn't give a stuff about coding. This is just more greed and just another way to make education the marketing arm of yet another corporation.

Re:What's with this fixation?

[phantomfive]

What's their angle - drive wages down?

Yes, exactly.

Re:What's with this fixation?

[0100010001010011]

Pulling in data from more sources than Excel. Automating importing / cleaning up data from what ever format their supplier uses, interfacing with web APIs, automatic report generation, etc. With the critical mass of modules Python has these days you'd be re-inventing the wheel doing a lot of it.

Plus VBA lacks a decent IDE and testing environment. It takes me 3-4 times as long to do something in VBA than it does to do in Matlab.

Re:What's with this fixation?

[Billly Gates]

They think they can't find enough qualified applicants. Easy

The truth is the CEO's have no clue what the director or jr VP 3 levels down did to cut costs to raise the share price. OUTSOURCED! If the CEO asks the jr VP of finance says well Mr. CEO we couldn't find enough qualified applicants to keep our systems up. We had no choice but to use WIPRO.

SMoke is soo blown up asses at that level which many do not know what the reality is. This is why undercover boss was popular on TV. The CEO undercover will visit typically an underperforming and an overperforming store so he or she can see firsthand what is going on. Or they will go through their whole supply chain to see something and figure out how this sh*t works from the production floor to the customer.

Re:What's with this fixation?

[gweihir]

I think it is just "this modern thing" they do not comprehend and hence must be the future. They might as well advise everybody to learn how to compose symphonic music, for the good it will people do. Sure, good coders will have good jobs for the foreseeable future, but bad coders will not even get a job now. School will never produce good coders, as school is about basic skills. Coding on the level required to be really useful is a very advanced skill. It can only be self-taught (yes, a good academic CS program helps, but it is only one part of what is needed) and requires dedication and talent.

Re:What's with this fixation?

[thinkwaitfast]

In 30 years of embedded experience, I've found that I can teach myself most languages in under a day (and have never had a CS class (but have read a lot of books on the subject). I've formally, college level, studied four languages, but can't speak any of them (passably English).

Re: What's with this fixation?

[cyber-vandal]

I picked one at random. It requires 8 years of experience in that software field. How do I acquire that immediately so that I can apply for that job.

Re:What's with this fixation?

[Opportunist]

There's an easier way to drive wages down: replace upper management with magic-8-balls. WAY cheaper and about as "visionary" when it comes to decision making.

Re:What's with this fixation?

[rkordmaa]

Not everyone who learns math at highschool becomes a mathematician, basic math skills are still really useful to have in almost any field of life. Same thing with programming, programming skills are not only applicable if you become a professional programmer. Computer is THE tool in majority of professions out there, knowing how it works and how to make it do some task that only applies to your job specifically is a huge benefit to anyone. Ask yourself, how many times you have heard of stories about office workers struggling with some dumb task that should really be taken care of by software, only nobody working at it realizes software even could take care of it? Teaching a bit of programming to kids is a no-brainer really.

Re:What's with this fixation?

[wwphx]

The thing that I particularly love about this is the irony that it's Disney, the company being sued by workers for outsourcing its IT department to India and sacking all of its local IT workforce. So go right ahead and learn to code under the Disney IT directive, kids -- you're never going to code for them! You might stand and let people on to rides for $10 an hour, but you're not going to code for them.

No, not everyone should be programmers. I have no problem with exposing everyone to code, you never know when someone might be incredibly gifted and they just needed that exposure. All I needed was to be shown that KSR-33 teletype with the dial-up acoustic coupler modem back in '74 and I was hooked. I didn't know a thing about code at that time, but I learned pretty quick. Give kids a class every other year that also helps them with critical thinking, and maybe there's a chance we can improve the state of computer security and reduce the amount of Nigerian Prince fraud that goes on over time. It requires curiosity, drive, and a certain mind set to be a coder, and not everyone is cut out for it. I've seen amazing coders, I've seen horrible coders, and personally I think I'd rather see fewer of the latter than more of the former.

Re: What's with this fixation?

[0100010001010011]

According to Slashdotters they're all old hat experts in everything that are being replaced by useless H1Bs that know nothing and can't get hired only because of ageism.

Re:What's with this fixation?

[micahraleigh]

Companies insist programmers are only capable for 15 years after graduation, so they currently have a limited supply.

By having more people who are capable for 15 years they think they'll have more supply, indirectly bringing down price.

A better solution: realize the age discrimination for software developers is just tech shamanism and throw it out the window.

A lot of people refuse to enter or leave the field because they think they can only do it for 10 years.

Re: What's with this fixation?

[Bengie]

Google and Facebook have stated that there is zero correlation between ability and experience past 6 months. If you had a collection of programmers, all with at least 6 months experience in whatever software field, the skill distribution would be nearly identical between those with less than 1 year and those with more than 5 years. Experience is a nearly worthless requirement.

Re:What's with this fixation?

[Bengie]

Even better. Random has pathological edge cases.

Re: What's with this fixation?

[cyber-vandal]

You don't need to convince me, I'm not the person doing the hiring.

replace math instead

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:replace math instead

[Bengie]

Programming is not math, it's pure logic. Math is a subset of logic.

Coding achieves the "expand your mind" objective

[El Cubano]

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 got my undergraduate to do the same

[Anonymous Coward]

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."

No and screw Disney

[Lije Baley]

They're not going to give them any jobs.

Re: No and screw Disney

[Anonymous Coward]

The Disney that just outsourced their IT to foreign h1b contractors? That Disney?

Re: No and screw Disney

[Lije Baley]

Exactamundo!

Re:No and screw Disney

[Billly Gates]

Yeah I was about to type the same thing. But really not meaning to be funny but real.

If Disney wanted to hire Americans they would so why bother since they do not give a crap? MY only conclusion is the CEO probably was spoon fed some lies about having to outsource so some jr. VP of finance or accounting jackass could get his bonus. The CEO probably really believed he had no IT department before and had to outsource as he is removed at that level.

Or he did and this is a publicity stunt to make them look not so heartless about replacing Americans.

Re: No and screw Disney

[Lije Baley]

Some of us care plenty about it, are interested in new things, and will learn about them in our spare time, but we maintain more of a separation between "work" and "play". We consider "work" to be things that we do to achieve goals like economy and stability, in support of business objectives and user needs. New and cool things need to be experimented with, P.O.C.'s built, compared and critiqued, to prove they add net value, particularly for critical functionality. Being mindful of all that, it is normal to be more cautious about new things. Also, after 20 years or so, there is some fatigue from"new" things, since so many turn out to be not very new and/or short-lived. You get tired of investing in stuff that you've basically done before, or that doesn't really work, or that gets replaced just about the time you get it working well. Your particular example of VS 2015 is a case where some of us old-timers felt burned by the post-2010 UI regressions and were shy about trying the newer versions for a while. And I expect 2008r2 will be with us for quite some time yet, for similar reasons. I love to try new things, and depending on the kind of company and management I have, I will work on them during slow times and then work them into Prod service later on, if they are truly better. But when there is real work to be done, I keep my priorities straight (the customer, the business, my family, my fun), and I may not have time for "playing" with shiny things.

Re:No and screw Disney

[Lije Baley]

FWIW: I didn't mean it to be funny. Somebody came along later and modded it Funny, probably Mark Zuckerberg.

Je parle Python

[Alain Williams]

Nice idea, everyone should be taught the basics of programming; but, for most people, human languages are more important to be learned in depth.

Re:Je parle Python

[DontBeAMoran]

Parles-tu vraiment Python? Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!

Why is it either/or?

[BitterOak]

Why does it have to be either/or? Why can't kids learn Spanish AND Python?

Re: Why is it either/or?

[Michael Woodhams]

It is only two out of three, but you can program Perl in Latin.

Re:Why is it either/or?

[CanadianMacFan]

Because both aren't useful for all students. The American programmer is dead. If you learn the right foreign language you can at least talk with the H1Bs more effectively. /s

Re:Why is it either/or?

[TeknoHog]

Why can't kids learn Spanish AND Python?

I didn't expect the Inquisition.

Babel, tower of (or was it Hanoi?)

[fyngyrz]

Too many languages anyway. Just standardize on ASCII and insist on English. Problem solved. Many problems solved.

Just look at Slashdot: We never have to put up with any non-English here (well, except for TFSs, but that's just because the editors are illiterate) because the Slashcode, it doesn't truck with nasty shit like Unicode or UTF-8 or whatever.

You want bullets, or special currency symbols, or Chinese? No. Not gonna have any. (No editing your posts, either, get your damned stuff 100% right the first time, like every programmer does, see?) And no pictures. As we all know, pictures are worth a thousand words, and every post would be worth more than TFS, so none of that here. Write it, don't sight it.

So yeah, teach em English and ASCII and let 'em loose on the world.

Serve the bloody world right for letting us elect Trump, anyway.

Besides, 7-bit text should be enough for anyone. My Televideo terminal is still 100% good with ASCII. If those dimweasels hadn't stopped putting RS-232 ports on computers, I'd still be using it.

ATH0, bitches.

Re:Babel, tower of (or was it Hanoi?)

[Anonymous Coward]

" insist on English. Problem solved. Many problems solved."

Not really, you'll need to learn Mandarin to be able to understand the people paying you, and you'll need to learn Hindi to be able to train the people replacing you.

Re:Babel, tower of (or was it Hanoi?)

[Anonymous Coward]

Finally there's someone here I agree with! I still use serial ports by the way, it's the port of the gods.

Re:Babel, tower of (or was it Hanoi?)

[jimtheowl]

I have to assume that this is coming from a uni-lingual Anglophone perspective. Although English is presently the international language of business, it does not mean that it will remain so over time, neither that everyone should conform to your expectations of convenience.

The perceived problem is only from your perspective. From mine, knowing more languages is not a problem, it is an exercise in expansion of the brain. Music is even better. Further more, I find English to by a somewhat dry language. I express myself differently in French and Spanish and would love to be fluent in Russian, German, Mandarin and Cantonese.

As for ASCII have it your way, but I prefer EBCDIC.

Re:Babel, tower of (or was it Hanoi?)

[Darinbob]

Esperanto, French, Swahili, even Lojban. Why English of all the languages out there? Parochialism, or Americans too dumb to learn a second language?

Re:Babel, tower of (or was it Hanoi?)

[Darinbob]

And French isn't? French used to be the international language. Or German, which used to be the language of science. Why not Latin?

Re:Babel, tower of (or was it Hanoi?)

[fyngyrz]

b) [Latin is] an absolute pain in the ass to learn

Obligatory

Re:Babel, tower of (or was it Hanoi?)

[dcw3]

For most people, English is a foreign language.

But what about non-Americans?

Re:Coding achieves the "expand your mind" objectiv

[shess]

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.

Isn't that the entire point of school, though? So pretty much anything goes, as long as it's taught in the school system?

Software engineering can substitute for a foreign language in much the same way that home economics can substitute for economics.

I disagree

[93 Escort Wagon]

Our education system should not be strictly utilitarian. While I can see value in exposing everyone to code - or, perhaps, teaching some form of technical literacy - it shouldn't be in place of foreign language. If we're going to do that, it should be along side of the foreign language requirement.

The point of learning foreign languages is, at least in part, to teach you about the world - to help you discover that not everyone is like you, and not everyone shares the same culture. Maybe the language itself doesn't stick with you forever, but the stories and life lessons hopefully do.

Expanding your mind in this context does not mean improving your intellect... it's about helping you improve as a human being.

This is why I'm leery when techies try to "improve" education. Their focus is usually so narrow, they don't seem to see what might be lost if they're not careful. They often seem completely unable to see the big picture. Heck, Bill Gates never thought about much of anything outside of Microsoft until Melinda came along - watch some old Almost Live episodes (an old Seattle-based comedy show) from pre-1995, and you'll see a fair number of barbs regarding his (and other Softies) lack of involvement in the community.

Re:I disagree

[aevan]

Your confusing culture and language, they don't necessarily dovetail in the class. I have 6 years of French from various schools and not a drop of 'french' culture from it. It's been remarkably useless (already speak two other languages), and would been far better served with having the option instead for coding.

At least here, the point of learning another language in school is to make Quebec be less whiny, somehow.

Re:I disagree

[ravenshrike]

*Looks at state of current US education system* Well they certainly can't do any worse than the people presently in charge.

Re:I disagree

[pjt33]

If we're going to do that, it should be along side of the foreign language requirement.

Even if we take a strictly utilitarian point of view, learning to program should be alongside learning a foreign language, because programmers ought to learn to write localisable UIs and the more exposure they have to other languages the better they'll understand what that means.

Re:Coding achieves the "expand your mind" objectiv

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

They are very different things, BUT...

[shoor]

I studied foreign languages, Latin in High School, German in college. I also was stationed in Japan in the Navy and tried to learn Japanese (with much more success than I ever had with Latin or German.)

I also learned how to program a computer. My first experience of that, Fortran on a PDP 8 in 1966, was pretty bad. But, after the Navy, I tried again and got pretty good at it. (Mostly programming in assembly and C.)

What the two disciplines have in common is a basic sort of new kind of mental activity that probably is good exercise for the brain in the way that physical exercise is good for the muscles.

The big advantage that teaching programming might have in my opinion, is that you can tell whether you're really learning it or not. A lot of language teaching is woefully incompetent, and nobody seems to care. (Maybe they care, but they say 'What can we do?' with a shrug.) With computers though, the program you write either works or it doesn't. And there's no ambiguous subjective interpretation of whether it works or not. That's a good educational experience for anybody who can handle the initial frustration. So yeah, it's probably not so bad to teach programming instead of foreign languages. Especially if they start out with assembly, so the student can actually see where the rubber meets the road. (But how many people can teach assembly language?)

Re:Coding achieves the "expand your mind" objectiv

[Jetstream]

I agree. At best, coding might help you to organize your brain to think logically in order to solve problems by breaking them down into simpler steps. And you can get along just fine in using computers without needing to code anything. (I've thought about trying to learn programming myself, but why bother when there's already so much good software already out there?) Neither of the two are absolutely critical & they're not equivalent - being able to communicate with people is more important than being able to code.

Re:Coding achieves the "expand your mind" objectiv

[geek]

So does math....... coding does not expand a mind any more than math does.

Re:Coding achieves the "expand your mind" objectiv

[hey!]

Your mind doesn't exist in one dimension. So anything that "expands your mind" isn't necessarily a suitable replacement for something else that "expands your mind".

Greek and Latin are valuable because they give you access to the mind and thoughts of other people. The same for foreign languages. Programming languages don't do that, except in a very narrow domain.

The failure of US language instruction is due to a stubborn unwillingness to change. We've known for fifty years or more that human language acquisition ability rapidly fades at adolescence, and yet we continue to to insist on waiting until adolescence to teach kids foreign language.

I think it should take place of Pre-Algebra

[jader3rd]

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.

Re:I think it should take place of Pre-Algebra

[Kjella]

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.

That sounds like an odd class to me, I think I'd struggle with learning new math concepts and new programming concepts at the same time. Maybe you could do paired lessons where you have one hour math theory, one hour implementing a tool using that math. A math formula would often be just a function though, you'd learn very little about structuring software (objects, attributes, functions, interfaces, properties), flow control (if/for/while etc.), GUIs, network, databases, validating input and error handling, i18n, version control or anything else not strictly related to the actual formula. I think they're different classes, really.

Re:I think it should take place of Pre-Algebra

[jader3rd]

I think I'd struggle with learning new math concepts and new programming concepts at the same time.

If the class is half and half that's true. I'm thinking that the math concepts wouldn't be taught directly, but the students would by and large make use of them in the programming. Then when it's time for actual math class, the students will just breeze right through those concepts, because they've been making use of them.

Re:I think it should take place of Pre-Algebra

[jader3rd]

Math is pure thought, with certain rules and rigor limiting the outcomes.

And this is why so many students struggle with math beyond arithmetic. They don't see how to ever apply the maths to anything. So we might as well start teaching applied maths; ie programming.

Why not both?

[rsilvergun]

Oh, yeah, nobody wants to pay for it. Christ, my kid's school didn't even have shop class. Too expensive. Not just fear of lawsuits (schools can avoid that with the right NDAs and a bit of training for the teach). It's bloody expensive to have a real shop class. Businesses would pay for that when we had manufacturing in the States and they wanted the kids to come out of high school ready to do it. But nowadays forget it. Nobody's gonna pay the taxes.

Re:Why not both?

[Billly Gates]

The problem is they do not want to pay for Obamacare and American wages either. Even if these kids could code Disney would only hire an Indian as they have shown outsourcing their whole IT department. Do not give me they couldn't find qualified applicants either since the workers had to train their counterparts who were not qualified.

I have a simple litmus test for ideas like this.

[hey!]

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.

Re:Coding achieves the "expand your mind" objectiv

[jader3rd]

So does math....... coding does not expand a mind any more than math does.

I believe that a lot of math principles will sink in better, for certain types of students, if they can apply the math in code, vs. just a bunch of busy work assignments.

50 billion devices by 2020.

[nbritton]

Comically applaud? Buddy there are currently 10 billion devices connected to the Internet, contrast that with a merger 500 million people who speak English. By 2020 it's estimated 50 billion devices will be connected to the Internet. I comically applaud you for wasting your time trying to master a 2nd way to communicate with people. You're ignoring the root problem... all people can't know all languages, so if effective communication is truly the goal then what you really need to do is kill off these secondary languages and standardize on just a few of them.

Some Places Have Done This for Years

[Cardcaptor_RLH85]

Where I grew up, we were required to take 2 years of a foreign language or 2 years of some form of technical education (in addition to half a year of "using computers" which was effectively a keyboarding class) in high school. The technical education could be computer programming, auto mechanics, wood shop, metal shop, etc. I graduated high school in Flint, MI back in 2003 so it's not like I went to a very well funded school district anytime recently. Hell, my younger brother took a technical design class and learned AutoCAD as a freshman at the same high school a couple years later.

Learning computer languages stimulates the same parts of the brain that learning human languages does and, unless you were going to use it right then, our high school language courses weren't very effective at teaching for retention anyway. I took a foreign language in high school for two years since I had an empty slot and needed an elective to fill it with, I almost never use it so I remember nearly nothing. I definitely remember how to code in Java, even though I only use it for a couple months every year on a specific project.

Re:Coding achieves the "expand your mind" objectiv

[AthanasiusKircher]

I don't necessarily have an objection to some form of coding requirement. However...

So, if you look at the foreign language requirement for what it is (an "expand your mind" requirement)

"Expand your mind"? That's really vague. Just a few things foreign language requirements help with that coding doesn't:

-- English grammar and usage. Many good writers and speakers have noted that they first really understand grammar and details of English usage when they study a foreign language. Now, of course it's possible to refine one's language use without formal grammar training, but the process of deconstructing a foreign language is often helpful to understand one's own.
-- English etymology and vocabulary use. Particularly if one studies Latin-based language like Spanish, French, or Italian, one gains knowledge of Latinate roots, which are often helpful in figuring out Latin-based English words. Frequently in the first few years of language instruction, you'll learn a lot more English vocabulary through relationships with the other language. Germanic languages also are helpful in learning new English words, due to common older roots.
-- Communication skills. A lot of students who just take a couple years of a language in high school or whatever don't really get a proficient speaking level, but that's largely due to lack of practice and subsequent failure to "keep up" the training. Nevertheless, for many students who do take the oral skills seriously, languages like Spanish can be incredibly helpful for communicating with customers/users and other job contacts in many professions. If you have an opportunity, doing something like Mandarin or Japanese can open yet other doors.
-- As one learns another language, generally one learns about other cultures too. Which again is often an introspective exercise in learning about your own culture -- you don't realize your assumptions about the word often until you contrast them with someone else's. This can be a very eye-opening exercise for young people.

None of this is an argument against coding. But there are more specific things language requirements do, aside from basic skills in that language or "expanding your mind" (whatever that means).

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.

Huh. I'm not sure even how to begin responding to this. The reason Latin and Greek were taught in schools commonly until the mid-20th century is because they not only served as a common communication system in many fields, were the basis of many modern languages, and were the most common languages of historical documents over a span of more than 2000 years, but also were the foundation of much of Western culture and political systems. There's still a vast amount of classical, medieval, and early modern literature unavailable in translation -- and when I saw "literature" I mean all documents, including scientific and technical advances, as well as cultural artifacts.

While I'm not arguing for a return to Latin or Greek requirements, I don't think it's a coincidence that the U.S. government started wildly straying from the original restrictions on federal power in the early to mid 20th century as knowledge of Latin/Greek and related Roman/Greek history (and political science) decreased. Sure, it's possible to read about these things in English in translation, but the widespread use of Latin led to a promotion of related cultural knowledge (see above), including political and philosophical questions. The Founders of the U.S. all knew their history very well and designed our government in various ways to prevent recurrence of problems that happened in ancient societies. All of this is largely forgotten these days, at best a marginal sidenote to history courses in many public school curricula.

And that's just the tip of the iceberg. Latin and Greek had even more benefits for learning about E

Disney? The company laying of u.s. programmers?

[Maxo-Texas]

Are they serious?

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/0...

Laughable

[John Allsup]

It is laughable that people talk of it being an 'either/or' thing. In the modern world, people need a grasp of foreign languages, since people need to talk to people; people need a grasp of programming, so that computers are not so much 'magic black boxes with flashing lights'; and people need to grasp the languages of maths and science. Figuring out how to teach people, and get across why grokking these things is a good idea, is a research project nobody at the top of the education seems to want to take fully take on.

Re:Laughable

[geekmux]

It is laughable that people talk of it being an 'either/or' thing. In the modern world, people need a grasp of foreign languages, since people need to talk to people; people need a grasp of programming, so that computers are not so much 'magic black boxes with flashing lights'; and people need to grasp the languages of maths and science. Figuring out how to teach people, and get across why grokking these things is a good idea, is a research project nobody at the top of the education seems to want to take fully take on.

Most people need to learn how their "magic black box" works about as much as they need to learn how their "vroom-vroom" engine works, which is why most people have no fucking desire to learn programming or auto repair. That's what they pay other people for.

It's laughable that you think the average layman needs a grasp of programming when 1% of computer users hold that skill today, which doesn't seem to affect their ability to operate a "magic black box". We've been studying how to teach humans for a very long time. One truth has come out of that; not everyone is cut out for learning advanced shit.

Re:Laughable

[Billly Gates]

THe problem is 2fold.

They want to hire Americans, but not at current wages. WIth greater supply is less demand. A kid out of college earns around 10 - 20/hr with 15/hr being average for a college grad. Ridiculous but reality. Kids today want $60,000 a year writing code out of school???! I think they do not like this want new programmers to live at home with their parents for 5 to 10 years until 30 making $15/hr coding ideally.

This would raise the share prices and make IT more comeptitive with the other departments.

2nd my biology teacher had a saying. People know more about their freaking cars then their bodies. Students hated science but the same principle applies. COmputers are important in business and any kid should know how to use excel SUM and basic pivot tables.

Re:Laughable

[Anonymous Coward]

2nd my biology teacher had a saying. People know more about their freaking cars then their bodies.

I can take my car apart, replace components, and put it back together without all the bleeding and screaming and carrying on that home surgery entrails. Sorry, entails.

Re:Laughable

[geekmux]

THe problem is 2fold.

They want to hire Americans, but not at current wages. WIth greater supply is less demand. A kid out of college earns around 10 - 20/hr with 15/hr being average for a college grad. Ridiculous but reality.

If reality is ridiculous, then perhaps we should start doing something about that shit, because no college graduate spends four years obtaining a degree to live the dream of continuing to live in their parents basement. And anyone from any era should understand that. Perhaps $60K isn't such a silly figure, especially when you look at the average cost of living today. When you cannot afford to be single to buy a home simply because you need at least two incomes, the problem becomes rather obvious. And when the chasm between the 99% and the 1% continues to grow, my sympathy fucking dies for the greedy elite not wanting to pay a decent wage.

2nd my biology teacher had a saying. People know more about their freaking cars then their bodies. Students hated science but the same principle applies. COmputers are important in business and any kid should know how to use excel SUM and basic pivot tables.

Using Excel features is not coding (there's a SUM button in the GUI), and can be taught in a day with YouTube. Computers are a lot like cars in business value. Learning to drive one is rather mandatory. Learning to build one is optional.

Re:Laughable

[Billly Gates]

The average starting salary for a college graduate in the US in 2015 was a bit over $50k. That's in all areas, If college graduate programmers are instead being paid a bit over $30k, then we're educating too many programmers, and there needs to be a labor shortage going forward to discourage employers from paying absolute shit to college graduates.

And $60k out of school sounds very reasonable for programmers. It's not an easy job, and it requires specialized knowledge. It should be paying more than the average starting salary.

Doesn't matter I can find someone in India to do it for $25k. It makes sense college grads to compete at that global wage. Sucks but without experience the guy from India is more qualified.

Pragmatism

[Roger W Moore]

What's their angle - drive wages down?

I expect that their angle is pragmatism. Given the way things seem to be going in the US foreigners are increasingly unlikely to travel there so you won't encounter people speaking foreign languages and the same restrictions will mean there will be a huge shortage of IT skills such as programming.

Exaclty

[future assassin]

Although I'm a computer geek and love to build websites, do computer graphics, build 3 game maps using NetRadiant, run Linux game servers and mess around with scripts like Drupal I can't program my way out of a wet paper bag. I can do graphic design, fix anything on my car but when it came to programming I just can't learnt it at all. When I took German in high skool I was able to pick it up pretty quickly in one year, although French was a bit harder for some reason. Trying to learn JS, perl and PHP to where I could write my own module or script has proven to be futile, my brain just sees gibberish when I look at code.

Re:Exaclty

[thinkwaitfast]

German is just like English, but with more spit.

Re:Exaclty

[Opportunist]

German is just like any imperative language. Everything sounds like a command or a question asked by the inquisition.

Obsolete knowledge

[manu0601]

Coding language will obsolete much faster than foreign language. I am not sure I want my children to learn stuff that will be utterly useless when they will be grown ups. Even coding techniques may not be on par with foreign languages on that front.

Coding IS a foreign language

[RogueWarrior65]

At least you wouldn't be wasting years conjugating verbs in ways only used in old literature.

Re:Kid's best interest.

[K. S. Kyosuke]

If you teach everyone to make "real fucking money", nobody will do the actual work.

Re:Coding achieves the "expand your mind" objectiv

[bidule]

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?

First, they learned different cultures and improved their understanding of the world. You have to think in Spanish to speak Spanish properly.

Second, they read more and learn new words. Maybe enough to know capitols are buildings, principals are people. Something programming will never solve.

Disney will hire my kid

[rsilvergun]

if they have to. They want the jobs here in the States to benefit from the stability bought by our wealth and military. Now, if we can shut down the visa programs that bring rank and file programmers in then we'll talk. It's like I always say: bring back the jobs before us parents bring back our kids.

Re:Disney will hire my kid

[Billly Gates]

They had their own IT department. They trained their Indian counterparts because they were not qualified.

Sure they want infrastructure like a military. So qualified workers were there. They wanted to save money and raise the share price and didn't care or see the value in IT to justify the expense. So it serves Disney no purpose unless the CEO had smoke blown up his ass to justify the cost accountant who got his bonus for saving money.

Re:More rote repetition? No thanks.

[gweihir]

Very much this.

Foreign Language?

[LostMyBeaver]

I took Spanish in high school which allowed me to get an awesome job as a programmer in Miami in a Cuban company when I was 18. Somehow I see Florida as a place where Spanish should be mandatory from 1st grade for all kids. If you pretend like Spanish is a foreign language in Florida, you're an idiot.

I took coding instead of sports

[dbIII]

I took coding instead of sports. In hindsight from decades later a bit of both may have been a better idea than one or the other. Learning another language was not a choice on the maths/science track, and neither was typing (women's work apparently).

Re:Kid's best interest.

[ChrisMaple]

In the rich world that is necessarily intertwined with widespread automated labor, there is always work available for people willing to provide skilled craft and artwork.

The rich people who want, like Scrooge McDuck, to do nothing but swim in their money bin, are rare to the point of fiction. The real rich want to spend their money on quality goods and services. If they have the machines that make goods and do services, eventually they will have all those that can be made by machines, and will want human-made things. Life goes on.

Some of the rich also want challenges, and some want to elevate mankind in general. They also will figure out how to create jobs for those who would otherwise be unemployed.

Well, Disney, says it all really

[hughbar]

Since when did major corporations decide what was good for school? Don't answer it was a rhet-or-ical question.

I'm bilingual in French, know 'some' Japanese and have been a programmer most of my career. The one is not a substitute for the other and, also, learning foreign languages is to do with what Aristotle called flourishing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... enhanced human condition, ability to communicate with and enjoy other cultures. School and university is not just preparation for work, although Disney et al. would prefer that that be so.

Disney?

[cyber-vandal]

The same Disney that's replacing their IT staff with cheap foreign imports? Why would they be interested in this?

Re:Disney?

[ruir]

I have no idea why would someone listen to evil Disney.
Or for that matter, any predatory firm, with dubious interests in Washington, a public rap of treating employees like garbage and being litigious as their core business model.
And mainly, being the first force driving the insane copyright laws.

It fullfil other requirement

[aepervius]

Learning a foreign language give you a (limited) insight in that foreign culture too. Coding does nothing of the sort. Do you really want the US even more self centered than it is now ?

Re:Kid's best interest.

[ruir]

The "poor" need to spend money for the business of the rich to thrive. Wait until the disposable income of the older generations dry off (2-3 generations?), and you will see where this new politic of shitty salaries will lead everyone.

Dumbing down the slaves

[lucasnate1]

Learning languages may not give immediate benefit to disney and friends, but it helps save a cultural heritage, helps keep humanity varied, and allows us to get more information about how people live around the world. In other words, it makes people more informed and aware, which is the opposite of what disney and friends want.

"He Who Proposes, Does"

[seven of five]

How 'bout a requirement that any lawmaker/CEO/MBA who wants to toot about not enuff programmers first become certified in SQL, java, and PHP.

Disney lobbyists

[backslashdot]

The nasty cretins. Ruining the party for everyone just because they want to keep the copyright on Mickey Mouse. They are ramping up their lobbying organization so they can fight to re-extend copyright terms once again. Mickey Mouse would pass into the public domain in 2028 if they did nothing. Anyone remember the nightmare of Disney lobbying in the early 2000s as they fought to extend the copyrights. Why couldn't they get Congress to grant them an exemption instead of ruining copyright law for everyone?

0.02 cents

[DaMattster]

Disney is a corporation and should stay out of education matters. Disney should not be telling us how our lives should be run. I'm personally sick of the hubris of these corporations dictating or wants and needs. Fuck you, Disney! I liked MGM and Warner cartoons better anyways.

idiots

[Tom]

Americans already know too few foreign languages. It's not just about the language, it is also about culture and psychology. Language tells so much about how people think, and knowing at the very least one foreign language is - in my eyes - an absolute prerequisite to calling yourself civilized.

Re:idiots

[Neuroelectronic]

What two languages are those?

I Speak BASIC

[JoeCommodore]

Used to add BASIC and 6502 Assembly Language along with English to what languages do you know questions on trivial (non-employment) questionnaire forms back in the day...

Foreign Language Options Should be Re-Thought

[damn_registrars]

When I was growing up, my school district was in a constant refrain of "Spanish! Spanish! Spanish!", it was the language they wanted every student to learn. In middle school we could take a foreign language, but only if that language was Spanish. I ended up suffering through a total of 3 years of a language that is of absolutely no value to me in my life.

I realized then, and have confirmed many times over, that Mandarin would have been vastly more useful for me.

Now, of course this varies from one person to another. One of my sisters works in hospitality and uses Spanish regularly. In my field Spanish is about as useful as Esperanto or Klingon. It turns out that in my field the most useful language I could have taken would have been German.

This of course doesn't mean that all schools should drop Spanish to teach German. It does mean that they should offer more languages and actually encourage kids and parents to think about the applications of them.

And then once we include programming languages, I definitely encounter more Perl than German.

Parent of a coding nerd and a language nerd

[Photonmaker]

While I see the thinly veiled attempt to push coders further into a commodity, this is wrong at so many levels. My oldest son loves to code, is "multi-lingual", and understands that his learned languages are just a method of expressing how to solve a problem. He understands that being able to code is a tool for solving problems, not the ultimate end. My younger son loves foreign languages, and couldn't care less about coding. His STEM subject scores are perfect, so it's not the lack of ability to grasp technical concepts are solve complex problems. He plans on solving problems by using understanding the nuances of international situations (business, political, whatever) through his knowledge of human language.

Different people have different interests - Disney has made a nice living, as have all the various social media outlets who are likely right behind this as well, telling the human story or more appropriately taking advantage of it for profit. They should understand that reducing a generation to low-paid commodity coders does not play to their future best interest of selling their products.

Duh !

[JimSadler]

Mathematics, physics and chemistry all involve learning a formal language which is far removed from normal languages . However for English language users a knowledge of French, German and Spanish as well as Latin do have great value as it helps the user have a better grasp of the English language. Most Americans have a poor grasp of their own language and we need to push to make that less of a problem.

Opportunity not Mandate

[Dareth]

Exposure and opportunity for continued study in many different fields including carpentry, plumbing, technology, and music would be good for people to experience. Exposing everyday people to code or algorithms or just simple computer systems like a Raspberry PI is cool. Even a chance to strum a guitar or pull a bow across a violin could be fun once or twice. Expecting people to master something without an interest is pretty much a waste of time.

Re:Opportunity not Mandate

[CaptainDork]

I gave a lecture about this, and it agrees with you.

I started my anti-ubiquitous code recommendation by suggesting kids, at an early age, be exposed to a wide variety of activities that span the spectrum of aptitude from mental to physical.

Steer the kid away from uninteresting, boring projects, and toward the general direction of passion-inducing fun.

Also, some children lean toward a particular path very early on, and others don't develop specificity until their teens.

I share with my audience that I was not interested in a damned thing in elementary, junior high (middle school, now) or high school except for these:

1.) Diagramming sentence structure. I loved the logic and the challenge. It was a game to me. That was the ONLY part of English I excelled at.

2.) Algebra. Lower math like add, subtract, multiply, divide, geometry, and square root extraction was rote and boring. I grokked the symbolic generalization of symbolic representation of algebra.

I was never good at anything in school.

When I was 19, I went into this man's Navy; got tested, and they shipped me off to electronics school (two tours). I killed algebra, trigonometry, geometry, solid state physics, magnetism, ...

That all evolved into mastering programmable handheld calculators and then on to home computers in 1978.

I'm retired from the IT field, now.

Had I been pushed in the right direction early own, all you bastards (or bitches, as may apply) would be working for me.

Re: Opportunity not Mandate

[CaptainDork]

Care to expand on that?

Not forcing coding, giving options...

[Rogue974]

They aren't saying force every kid to take programming and become coders.

Do any of you have kids in high school? I do at the moment, 2 in high school and 2 more about to enter high school. What they are saying, there is a requirement to take 2 years of a foreign language. Instead, you can substitute 2 years of programming instead. That way if you are someone who is into coding and wants to become a programmer or just doesn't like foreign language, then code to meet the requirement.

I live in Illinois, here kids are required to take 4 years of gym in high school unless they meet certain requirements to get an exemption. The school district I was in was about to make some changes to the program and tons of parents showed up and fought for the exemptions that ere in place. 1 man said, only time gym was of any use to him was basic training as a marine. Another worked in college admissions and she said they don't even pay attention to gym grades or attendance.

At some point, our education starts becoming less about learning the basics of society and turns into preparing for your future chosen career. For most, that happens in high school or college. Once you hit that point, many of the, you must take 4 years of this, 3 years of that, 2 years of that start forcing motivated kids who know what they want to do to fight through the drudgery of a stupid class they get nothing out of.

For the record, I was a high school athlete and am fluent in second language and can get by in a couple of others. I am also an engineer. I enjoyed gym, but would much rather have been able to get more AP classes. I learned something from foreign language in high school, but what I took in high school was a waste as french is not what I am fluent in.

Two men are stranded..

[kcdoodle]

Two men are stranded on a deserted island. They do not speak the same language.

Should the less intelligent man learn the more intelligent person's language?
Or should the smarter person learn the other person's language?

Stop being such xenophobe and get out there. It is your planet after all, maybe you should learn all about it.

Presently I speak about 100 different COMPUTER languages. This has never helped me buy a watch in Quebec,a poncho in Mexico, or pick up a chick in Brazil. So far, I am only fluent in English.

I have been trying to learn Spanish for about a year now. It is slow going. I practice my sentences, I do quizzes on vocabulary, I watch and read Univision. I watch movie DVDs I know by heart in Spanish with Spanish subtitles. I am far better than I was before, and I will get there in time.

I just finished reading Trevor Noah's book "Born a Crime" and it has several relevant quotes on this subject:

“Nelson Mandela once said, 'If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.' He was so right. When you make the effort to speak someone else's language, even if it's just basic phrases here and there, you are saying to them, 'I understand that you have a culture and identity that exists beyond me. I see you as a human being” Trevor Noah, Born a Crime

“Language brings with it an identity and a culture, or at least the perception of it. A shared language says "We're the same." A language barrier says "We're different.” Trevor Noah, Born a Crime

“Language, even more than color, defines who you are to people.” Trevor Noah, Born a Crime

Bottom line, you are only here (on your planet) a short time, and language, even your own, enriches the experience, why not grab all you can?


I especially like the high oxygen concentration and low gravity you have here.

Electives

[SSA-Ed]

Why not offer students either, or both? I've heard the same arguments for changing the math sequence: Drop Calc, add statistics. But why drop calc? Offer both.

Everyone should learn code AND a foreign language

[Shirley Marquez]

Everyone should learn the basics of coding. Not because they will all use them to actually program computers, but because you learn important lessons about logical thought. You learn the importance of including all the instructions, not including any incorrect instructions, and putting them all in the correct order. Somebody who has experienced coding will write better recipes and give better directions to their house. Proof geometry teaches many of the same things, but coding does it better and comes with an automated tool that provides immediate feedback.

On the other hand, learning how to code is not a substitute for learning another human language. Language education carries important lessons about how people think; each language has different assumptions built into it, and experiencing a different set broadens the horizons of the learner. Language education usually also contains a large component of learning about another culture, which is valuable as well.

Re:this crap is why we need school vouchers

[DarkVader]

That's exactly the wrong approach. What we need is good public schools, not a giant money transfer to for-profit companies, which is what a voucher system would very quickly degenerate into.

The opposite approach would actually do much more to improve education - a complete ban on private schools would motivate parents with more resources to push for improvements instead of pulling their kids out.

Re:What value

[hackwrench]

I took German for three high school years, and have spent oodles of time on my own learning Japanese, and while I like being able to better access material in those languages, I see no specific benefit from learning more language. That's right, all you are learning when you learn a foreign language is more language, essentially. You aren't learning some new function that your current grasp of language doesn't already provide you.

Should be coding in a foreign language

[WillAffleckUW]

When I was a college student in the Canadian Army, I learned how to code in both English and French.

It's a useful skill, and France is hiring scientists right now, even as America is becoming a Third World banana republic.

Re:What value

[Cinnamon Beige]

False; as somebody who speaks multiple languages and can code, I find both have their uses--for one, I chose my languages well as nearly every single STEM field has two major languages, meaning while a decent amount of the lit is in English, you can access pretty much anything of note in the lit by picking up the right not-English language and yes, people will pay for somebody who stacks correctly to just do stuff like make sure that the relevant lit isn't in the language they don't speak or coordinate between research groups. Another, rather interesting thing is that learning a second (human) language improves your overall language skills. Not so much with coding.

The real question ought to be is if you're going to learn enough of either type of language to get much use out of either. (And, frankly, I'd argue for teaching coding from elementary school.) If the answer to is 'not enough of either,' this argument seems silly.

The answer before you start

[hackwrench]

The answer before you start is going to be "I don't know". I must not have learned enough, not from lack of trying, but I have learning issues. The problem is that learning problems aren't identified and worked on. As I have aged, new problems have crept upon me and I have not been given adequate opportunity to resolve them to my best ability. This involves working with various doctors people with health issues do not get enough time with.

Re:The answer before you start

[Cinnamon Beige]

From what I've heard and seen as the basic likely amount you're going to get from two years of either type of language in high school, 'not enough of either' is where I'd be betting. (I do know about learning problems. With Japanese--some Japanese broadcasters do, I hear, broadcast over the internet and don't region-lock it, that can often help a lot. I opted to strand myself in Tokyo for a while.)

Just in case:

[fyngyrz]

BAUDOT(shift)?(unshift) THAT STUFF WAS OLD (shift)40(unshift) YEARS AGO WHEN I WROTE ABOUT IT IN KILOBAUD(shift).

Re:Kid's best interest.

[gordo3000]

this is the key to it. I have a friend who started a business. A little play area for kids. He was just stunned that the number 1 money maker ended up being upper class (think not 15% of the area he did it) showing up for birthday parties that were way overboard. People who have money want to spend it. And there will always be goods and services they like. It just may not be obvious till someone hits you on the head with the stack of money they made.

Most folks I know with money spend it, and in fact spend way more than prudent saving says they "should". But then all that means is more opportunity to start businesses. I've seen a lot of interest in personally planned vacations, bringing back travel agents after they all but disappeared a decade ago. I know folks who will pay 10 grand to just have a tour guide fill a 1 week vacation for a family with activities. If you have done the ground work, and can even just fill 12 weeks a year, you are making pretty comfortable money since the family foots all the costs as well.

Sorry, but why is anyone supposed to care

[PJ6]

what Disney thinks about education?

Re:this crap is why we need school vouchers

[ooloorie]

What we need is good public schools, not a giant money transfer to for-profit companies, which is what a voucher system would very quickly degenerate into.

It wouldn't "degenerate into" that, that is what it is designed to do. That is, it is intended to encourage for-profit companies to offer better education than public schools at the same price. If for-profit corporations cannot offer better education than public schools at the same price, then parents will not send their kids to private schools. If for-profit companies succeed at offering better education at the same price, then parents will take their kids out of public schools, send them to private schools, and we can shutter the public school system.

In fact, it is crystal clear that there is no significant relationship between per student spending and educational outcomes beyond a minimum [1] [2], and all policies trying to improve public school performance have failed. Public schools, a one-size-fits-all scheme subject to massive lobbying, is intrinsically limited in the quality of education it can deliver.

The opposite approach would actually do much more to improve education - a complete ban on private schools would motivate parents with more resources to push for improvements instead of pulling their kids out.

Coming from a country that tried that, I can assure you: it doesn't work. The wealthy and powerful simply send their kids abroad, and the public school system is intrinsically incapable of improving no matter what politicians do or how much money they throw at it.

Yeah, sure

[drolli]

that is probably because the american already learn too many foreigna languages

Re: Indeed

[Bengie]

Talent recognizes talent. Fake talent thinks it recognizes talent, but it's really recognizing other fake talent creating en echo-chamber. Turns out talent is incredibly difficult to measure objectively. How do we collectively decide who is talented without creating an echo-chamber of people who are only seemingly talented? There is also the issue that talented people tend to not be very social, making them outcasts.