As a recent HS grad (Spring '99) who has had enough time away from it to reflect some, I'd like to think I have a good feeling for what goes on as far as CS and computers in general in most high schools.
Computer Science - As had been said previously, HS CS teachers are not going to be the same people who could be out doing real programming jobs, becuase if they could, they would. Those who are lucky will have a teacher who at least understands the course mateiral in respect to the curriculim. My APCS teacher is a perfect example, she taught what we needed to know for the exam perfectly, but was a fish out of water elsewhere. And then there are teachers who are pretty much lost to beging with. According to friends of mine, they had a teacher who said essentially that, "I've never taught this before, so you guys are gonna be guinea pigs." Unless public schools were to start paying upper level science and CS teachers more than they would kindergarten teachers, this is pretty much the way that HS CS will be. If you can already program, it's an easy course otherwise you'll need help from someone who can already program.
Computer Use and Bureacracy - Even if Bjarne Stroustup (for example) were to start teaching HS CS, many problems would still remain. It would be almost inconceivable to get the Network Admins in public schools to be willing to run Linux boxes on the network. And even if that didn't happen, it'd have to go through so many levels of beauracracy that your head would spin. And again as stated before, any little infraction would completely destroy any progress made up until that point.
I don't want to sound pessimistic, but HS computer use above wordprocessing and web browsing seems a long way off. Unless schools can attract teachers who understand what they teach, science (especially CS) programs will continue to suffer. And even bringing school networks (and network admins) up to speed would probably require a lot of pro bono work from those who know what to do and care enough to do it.
Until then, I think high schools are going to be stuck where they are, in the past.
Eric
Re:Nanomedicine already exists
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Nanomedicine
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There's something about custom engineered viruses that just scares me. After the "super bug" scare when certain bacteria started showing up that were resistant to antibiotics, isn't it possible that a genetically engineered virus could mutate and start doing extremely harmful things?
Just because we can create life doesn't mean we can control it.
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Computer Science - As had been said previously, HS CS teachers are not going to be the same people who could be out doing real programming jobs, becuase if they could, they would. Those who are lucky will have a teacher who at least understands the course mateiral in respect to the curriculim. My APCS teacher is a perfect example, she taught what we needed to know for the exam perfectly, but was a fish out of water elsewhere. And then there are teachers who are pretty much lost to beging with. According to friends of mine, they had a teacher who said essentially that, "I've never taught this before, so you guys are gonna be guinea pigs." Unless public schools were to start paying upper level science and CS teachers more than they would kindergarten teachers, this is pretty much the way that HS CS will be. If you can already program, it's an easy course otherwise you'll need help from someone who can already program.
Computer Use and Bureacracy - Even if Bjarne Stroustup (for example) were to start teaching HS CS, many problems would still remain. It would be almost inconceivable to get the Network Admins in public schools to be willing to run Linux boxes on the network. And even if that didn't happen, it'd have to go through so many levels of beauracracy that your head would spin. And again as stated before, any little infraction would completely destroy any progress made up until that point.
I don't want to sound pessimistic, but HS computer use above wordprocessing and web browsing seems a long way off. Unless schools can attract teachers who understand what they teach, science (especially CS) programs will continue to suffer. And even bringing school networks (and network admins) up to speed would probably require a lot of pro bono work from those who know what to do and care enough to do it.
Until then, I think high schools are going to be stuck where they are, in the past.
Eric
Just because we can create life doesn't mean we can control it.
-Eric