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Thanks for the link however the point is simple: people who write those norms have no idea what programming means and how it can be done in modern desktops. If

• tuukkah 8y ago
  Finland doesn't do it like Italy or Sweden (let alone how they did it 20 years ago). Instead, kids are more likely to start with Scratch or similar: https://scratch.mit.edu https://scratch.mit.edu
  • xte 8y ago
    I'm curious how they can get enough teachers. I mean people who now IT enough not only to being able to actually "program" themselves for real a bit but also teach to children. In my personal experience even at universities (Italy with very limited knowledge of Swedish unis) for IT-centric courses we have only very few really competent teachers that also are able to communicate their competence well, transmitting passion for the matter, drawing a big number of possible evolution paths, instill the desire to explore autonomously, solving personal problems etc... Perhaps today's things have change but... Oh, sooner or later we need to seriously teach IT like we seriously teach our motherlanguage because that's the actual nervous system of our society and we not only should but must know it enough to being able to master the part needed to our life and having an informed opinion on that topic to avoid disastrous trends like today's one, only I really can't imaging how to form enough people. Even in casual events organized by LUG or few companies/universities I hear casual conversation from "supposed" technicians that make me shiver or from certain mailing lists...
    • tuukkah 8y ago
      In Finland, teaching is a respected profession with a Master's degree required and teachers are paid a proper salary and given autonomy in the classroom in return. They don't have to be professional-grade developers - they are professionals in general pedagogy and mentoring.
      • xte 8y ago
        I do not intend to judge the level of competence or respect of Finland's teacher's only I'm really curious how they were formed in the first place. In general when something new appear (to stay, with success) we have a pioneering phase that start to "form and initially spread" the new "thing". This phase may be quick, however it have to be at least 5-8-10 years to be "spread and know enough". After we have a "consolidation and popularization phase" that normally last long, 10-15 years if it's quick, after it became spread and know enough to have enough "thought currents", it have developed a sort of "stable" philosophy etc. This is the stage we can start to form teachers, normally for tech schools and universities. Only after a decade or even a generation we can start to arrive at "initials schools" teachers. Counting those years and see "IT age"... Well, we can say we are at start phase of teaching in schools, so it's really hard to have enough competent and "tested" teachers now... Also about pedagogy and professionalism I remember a personal observation, limited to universities, before I have observed too little: teachers with professional background tend to know far better what they teach and normally are more capable to communicate it. Teachers coming directly from academia tend to know far less and are far less able not only to communicate but also to create interest and transmit passion. Of course that's not a valid statistics nor I can generalize it for the entire world but... Well just as an example at first year of computer engineering degree course I have a course in chemistry, the first part was held by an teacher "definitively and proudly made in academia", it was a disaster not only for me. The second part by an actual chemistry doctor coming from the industry that start teaching to remain active instead of retire. For some results was still poor for other me included was really well. The same for economy course. The same for all subsequent courses and years. The third year in particular nearly no one digest mathematical physics (a sort of variant of rational mechanics adopted for a not-really-industrial engineering course), the second semester another teacher results completely changes. For essentially all. Long story short: only few know how to transfer knowledge and I can call them "pedagogues" do not caring to much if they study that subject or they are naturally brought to teach. That's needed but not sufficient. Competence in the field is also needed and for non-academic discipline it's hard to have gained, metabolized and summarized enough to teach. Also passion for the matter is needed and that's again should be trained and formed in years of activities. Like a construction worker's that see if something is valid by instinct even before actually calculate it. Only people with such experience can properly teach. And while normally young schools are considered "easier" to teach is at that stage that we really form our knowledge and start to develop paradigms.