Because school is where children go to learn basic stuff they will need in every day life and to see stuff they might never ever use again _but_ if nobody shows them, they might not know that they like it. I'm not promoting mandatory programming courses, thats BS, just like art is a BS subject to teach in school for years and years. I was always bad in art and will never be good at it and I really don't know why I had to draw countless water colour paintings during my school life. Give kids the choice. Here in Germany (at least in my state) there were courses in I think 9th and 10th grade, where pupils could choose between different subjects and one was a programming course. They used turtle to teach basic programming skills. I chose a mixed geography/chemistry subject which made me choose chemistry as one of my major subjects during 11-13th grade. Later on, from 11th grade to 13th grade, there were real programming courses where we learned about search algorithms, binary trees etc. and basic complexity analysis of those algorithms/data structures. Oh yeah and we used ELAN and Pascal as languages. Oh ok and we learned about a turing machine doing "busy beavers". But it was to no end mandatory.
"If he/she will never write one single line of code in his/her life... why teach programming? Isn't it more important to learn skills you might actually use?"
As said, just offer kids the choice to try it. Offer them the choice to try art, maybe make it mandatory for grade 1-6 or so, but don't force them to do it until they leave school. That was time I could have learned programming on my own at home. Instead I made countless bad paintings. So, your question is completely right, why force me to do something I will never ever do again in my life?
"But in no way is programming an essential tool for PC literacy!"
No, of course not. Common sense and being able to read what is on screen right in front of you are far more important for computer literacy but even people trained in using word and excel lack that ability to a great extent. And many consider that as computer literacy, which is wrong.
"I don't think that the whole world needs to know how PC's are working."
Of course they do not, but you should at least offer a real programming course instead of only teaching how to use excel, word and IE. Oh and while doing that you could try to teach the kids that there is not just MS stuff out there.
As said it was to the university and now I do live closer to the university (Same city instead of next city where my parents are from:)). The 60 miles are to the university AND back, so yes thats about 100km each day, 50 in the morning, 50 in the evening.
I had to refill the car once each week (if not driving on the weekends which I actually did:)) and that costs less than living near the university and paying for my own food. At home I only had to pay for the gas not food and living space.
As for the 'average' thing, I can't tell you that, as I don't even live in the US but only converted the numbers to gallons/miles to be 'compatible' to the common US reader:)
But you do understand that it indeed is a simple numbers game?
Your Hummer uses how many gallons per mile? Ok well its more like miles per gallon but you get the point. Lets assume 13 miles per gallon for an H2. The Volvo uses how much? Volvo S60, lets assume we drive only in the city thats 22 miles per gallon then. My Polo can do 36 miles in the city. On the highway these numbers get a little higher assuming you don't speed
Now you tell me, this is "differing only by a relatively minor degree"? 13 miles against 36 miles that's more than 2,5 times more per gallon.
Lets play with the numbers a little more. Assume you drive only 60 miles a day (thats about as far as I had to drive to the university and back each day until recently and I will assume the 36 miles per gallon that I would use in the city. My way to the university was in fact 3/4 highway 1/4 city).
You will have used 4.6 gallons, 1.6 gallons for me. I did this 5 times a week, you need 23, I need 8 gallons. In one semester lets assume 20 weeks I need to actually be at the university out of the 26 => You use 460 gallons, I use 160. Multiply this by the number of students. I don't know the percentage of students driving 60 miles per day to the university but the parking lot is normally so full that you need to park at the nearby shopping center if you are not half an hour early.
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"Why offer a programming course??"
Because school is where children go to learn basic stuff they will need in every day life and to see stuff they might never ever use again _but_ if nobody shows them, they might not know that they like it. I'm not promoting mandatory programming courses, thats BS, just like art is a BS subject to teach in school for years and years. I was always bad in art and will never be good at it and I really don't know why I had to draw countless water colour paintings during my school life. Give kids the choice. Here in Germany (at least in my state) there were courses in I think 9th and 10th grade, where pupils could choose between different subjects and one was a programming course. They used turtle to teach basic programming skills. I chose a mixed geography/chemistry subject which made me choose chemistry as one of my major subjects during 11-13th grade. Later on, from 11th grade to 13th grade, there were real programming courses where we learned about search algorithms, binary trees etc. and basic complexity analysis of those algorithms/data structures. Oh yeah and we used ELAN and Pascal as languages. Oh ok and we learned about a turing machine doing "busy beavers". But it was to no end mandatory.
"If he/she will never write one single line of code in his/her life... why teach programming? Isn't it more important to learn skills you might actually use?"
As said, just offer kids the choice to try it. Offer them the choice to try art, maybe make it mandatory for grade 1-6 or so, but don't force them to do it until they leave school. That was time I could have learned programming on my own at home. Instead I made countless bad paintings. So, your question is completely right, why force me to do something I will never ever do again in my life?
"But in no way is programming an essential tool for PC literacy!"
No, of course not. Common sense and being able to read what is on screen right in front of you are far more important for computer literacy but even people trained in using word and excel lack that ability to a great extent. And many consider that as computer literacy, which is wrong.
"I don't think that the whole world needs to know how PC's are working."
Of course they do not, but you should at least offer a real programming course instead of only teaching how to use excel, word and IE. Oh and while doing that you could try to teach the kids that there is not just MS stuff out there.
Yeah sure, everyone else is at fault and the engineers are always right :) Mod parent +5 Funny.
As said it was to the university and now I do live closer to the university (Same city instead of next city where my parents are from :)). The 60 miles are to the university AND back, so yes thats about 100km each day, 50 in the morning, 50 in the evening.
:)) and that costs less than living near the university and paying for my own food. At home I only had to pay for the gas not food and living space.
:)
I had to refill the car once each week (if not driving on the weekends which I actually did
As for the 'average' thing, I can't tell you that, as I don't even live in the US but only converted the numbers to gallons/miles to be 'compatible' to the common US reader
But you do understand that it indeed is a simple numbers game?
Your Hummer uses how many gallons per mile? Ok well its more like miles per gallon but you get the point. Lets assume 13 miles per gallon for an H2. The Volvo uses how much? Volvo S60, lets assume we drive only in the city thats 22 miles per gallon then. My Polo can do 36 miles in the city. On the highway these numbers get a little higher assuming you don't speed
Now you tell me, this is "differing only by a relatively minor degree"? 13 miles against 36 miles that's more than 2,5 times more per gallon.
Lets play with the numbers a little more. Assume you drive only 60 miles a day (thats about as far as I had to drive to the university and back each day until recently and I will assume the 36 miles per gallon that I would use in the city. My way to the university was in fact 3/4 highway 1/4 city).
You will have used 4.6 gallons, 1.6 gallons for me. I did this 5 times a week, you need 23, I need 8 gallons. In one semester lets assume 20 weeks I need to actually be at the university out of the 26 => You use 460 gallons, I use 160. Multiply this by the number of students. I don't know the percentage of students driving 60 miles per day to the university but the parking lot is normally so full that you need to park at the nearby shopping center if you are not half an hour early.
Go figure.