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> As one of the kids who was lucky enough to get a BBC Micro, I had zero support. No-one else in my family even knew how to turn it on. No teacher at my school

> As one of the kids who was lucky enough to get a BBC Micro, I had zero support. No-one else in my family even knew how to turn it on. No teacher at my school could support me because none of them knew how it worked either. If I broke it, I had to fix it. And no Stack Overflow, so no code to copy-paste. I had to go back to first principles every time and work out what went wrong and how I could make it go right. What is this weird obsession that we have with making children do everything the hard way? I understand that we want them to apply critical thinking and for them to grow into self-sufficiency, but why do we suggest these archaic hazing rituals? We've made strides in many areas of technology. We have the power to troubleshoot a non-working laptop, unsuccessfully diagnose, and then re-image it to a saved state in less than a school day. I'm not saying that there shouldn't be consequences, but I think we can put Timmy's time to better use.

mohaine 9y ago
They same reason we teach them basic math that a calculator can easily do. The primary reason for schools it to learn. Learning to type "8 * 7 =" is different then learning what it means to multiple 8 by 7
- noxToken 9y ago
  These are two entirely different things. Is the goal to get them to troubleshoot a computer, or are they being issued laptops to enable their education? If it's the former, then I can kind of understand. Trial by fire and all that good stuff. However you just said yourself: > we teach them basic math Keyword here is teach. We do not give them a math book and tell them to figure out what 8 * 7 means. We break down the concept of multiplication into its constituent parts. In that same vein, we should enable the child to learn how to troubleshoot the system. Like I said: I think we can put Timmy's time to better use.
coldtea 9y ago
>but why do we suggest these archaic hazing rituals? Well, life is an archaic hazing ritual.

mohaine 9y ago

They same reason we teach them basic math that a calculator can easily do. The primary reason for schools it to learn. Learning to type "8 * 7 =" is different then learning what it means to multiple 8 by 7

noxToken 9y ago
These are two entirely different things. Is the goal to get them to troubleshoot a computer, or are they being issued laptops to enable their education? If it's the former, then I can kind of understand. Trial by fire and all that good stuff. However you just said yourself: > we teach them basic math Keyword here is teach. We do not give them a math book and tell them to figure out what 8 * 7 means. We break down the concept of multiplication into its constituent parts. In that same vein, we should enable the child to learn how to troubleshoot the system. Like I said: I think we can put Timmy's time to better use.

coldtea 9y ago

>but why do we suggest these archaic hazing rituals? Well, life is an archaic hazing ritual.