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No, not any more than math or statistics are. Replacing a foreign language with a programming course is like replacing a music class with a math course; you may

No, not any more than math or statistics are. Replacing a foreign language with a programming course is like replacing a music class with a math course; you may think it's a good idea, but it's not because it's replacing the same type of thing.

mywittyname 8y ago
But how do we get law makers (or, more importantly, their constituents) to understand this? There's a huge push towards vocational education and parents thinks that "coding" is something their 10 year old can learn then apply to make buckets of money. Plus, you know, it's called a programming "language." If I personally had to chose between a foreign language course, or programming one as a learn-but-never-really-apply course for my child, I'd push them towards the foreign language.
- ghaff 8y ago
  I dunno. It's hard for me to see a year (say) of a foreign language that's never used outside of that class as having a lot of value. As I dimly remember my high school language classes, you didn't even really get into literature and culture associated with the language until later on. On the other hand, a year of a language like Python probably has some value in teaching logic and problem-solving even if the student never really programs in the future.
  - mywittyname 8y ago
    I feel like teaching coding is a waste of resources, for several reasons: there's a glut of material readily available for individual study; what's taught will be largely irrelevant when the student graduates; and importantly, it will likely be poorly taught. Good CS teachers can probably get jobs paying 3x as much, so only the most dedicated will stick with teaching. My opinions are probably biased because I had an otherwise good teacher who was just poorly trained, and it was a huge setback for me. I really enjoyed programming, until I took a course in high school. This lead me to pursuing chemistry in college until I learned to program again on my own (after which, I flipped to CS). I think it would be better to add discrete logic to math courses. That way, students learn the fundamentals that they can apply independently, or in college.
    - ghaff 8y ago
      Fair enough. Though, unfortunately, high school curriculums have to be more or less designed on the premise that individual study won't happen in many cases. If you assume independent study, there's probably very little that has to be taught in high school and we'd probably do things very differently.
    - spamizbad 8y ago
      I had a similar experience. My first programming teacher in high school was also my geometry teacher; a subject he taught extremely well (at least from my 15 year old point of view). His programming class however sucked all the fun out of it. His brother-in-law was a retired manager at Motorola and gave him a bunch of (even for the time) thoroughly obsolete suggestions: Everything started with being handed a specification. From there, you had to write a solution in pseudo code, which was a separate language from the one we were learning (TrueBasic I believe). Once your pseudo code was handed in and approved, you could begin programming; however, you had to document up-front all the variables you were going to be using and document their purposes. In addition, you had to explain in plain english what each subroutine did and what variables it would access and state whether it would simply read or read and write them (and then explain why). I remember him saying "If you're a professional programmer, there's a good chance you'll have a manager who isn't a programmer and they'll be reviewing your work!" I think he took his brother-in-laws advice too much to heart, because he really felt like he was giving us all a real taste of what being a "real" programmer was like. Sadly, this was 1998, and I suspect software development hadn't operated like that for a good 15-20 years (or if this was a weird practice localized to Motorola in the 70s) Any programming classes taught to minors should favor core fundamentals, exploration and creativity and avoid dwelling on industry practices which often have a shelf-life measured in years.
      - itronitron 8y ago
        >> "If you're a professional programmer, there's a good chance you'll have a manager This is the number one reason that schools should not try to teach students employable skills, because they usually get it very wrong. Teaching youngsters business processes that will be 10 years old when they graduate from college severely limits what they can achieve. I am all for teaching coding and other creative activities, but these should be explorations. Let the student discover on their own the degree of technical rigor they want to apply themselves to.
- chrshawkes 8y ago
  I've talked about this for a few years on my programming channel with millions of views. At least main stream news publications are now writing articles about it. This is a perfect example of just how clueless lawmakers can be. It's scary.
- mjevans 8y ago
  Coding might be aiming too high. A year of critical thinking and logical reasoning, how THAT is a general skill that can be applied everywhere. I'm not sure a whole year would need to be filled with that though, those skills would also be better grounded in reality. Combining those skills in to what used to be home ec (which I never had the opportunity to take) could be a good general life skills class.
edflsafoiewq 8y ago
Both math and music are often called languages. Of course that doesn't mean schools can replace foreign language requirements with them.
WorldMaker 8y ago
A music theory class can involve quite a bit of math. Often music theory can be taught as part of a larger music study. Just as there is room for music theory in a well-balanced music education, perhaps there is room for programming language study in a well-balanced linguistics education. That said, the goals of foreign language classes are rarely (strictly) about the arts and sciences linguistics, but more often targeted more directly towards the arts and sciences of culture, sociology, sometimes anthropology. (Programming languages are somewhat deficient in teaching useful life lessons in these other studies.)

mywittyname 8y ago

But how do we get law makers (or, more importantly, their constituents) to understand this? There's a huge push towards vocational education and parents thinks that "coding" is something their 10 year old can learn then apply to make buckets of money. Plus, you know, it's called a programming "language." If I personally had to chose between a foreign language course, or programming one as a learn-but-never-really-apply course for my child, I'd push them towards the foreign language.

ghaff 8y ago
I dunno. It's hard for me to see a year (say) of a foreign language that's never used outside of that class as having a lot of value. As I dimly remember my high school language classes, you didn't even really get into literature and culture associated with the language until later on. On the other hand, a year of a language like Python probably has some value in teaching logic and problem-solving even if the student never really programs in the future.
- mywittyname 8y ago
  I feel like teaching coding is a waste of resources, for several reasons: there's a glut of material readily available for individual study; what's taught will be largely irrelevant when the student graduates; and importantly, it will likely be poorly taught. Good CS teachers can probably get jobs paying 3x as much, so only the most dedicated will stick with teaching. My opinions are probably biased because I had an otherwise good teacher who was just poorly trained, and it was a huge setback for me. I really enjoyed programming, until I took a course in high school. This lead me to pursuing chemistry in college until I learned to program again on my own (after which, I flipped to CS). I think it would be better to add discrete logic to math courses. That way, students learn the fundamentals that they can apply independently, or in college.
  - ghaff 8y ago
    Fair enough. Though, unfortunately, high school curriculums have to be more or less designed on the premise that individual study won't happen in many cases. If you assume independent study, there's probably very little that has to be taught in high school and we'd probably do things very differently.
  - spamizbad 8y ago
    I had a similar experience. My first programming teacher in high school was also my geometry teacher; a subject he taught extremely well (at least from my 15 year old point of view). His programming class however sucked all the fun out of it. His brother-in-law was a retired manager at Motorola and gave him a bunch of (even for the time) thoroughly obsolete suggestions: Everything started with being handed a specification. From there, you had to write a solution in pseudo code, which was a separate language from the one we were learning (TrueBasic I believe). Once your pseudo code was handed in and approved, you could begin programming; however, you had to document up-front all the variables you were going to be using and document their purposes. In addition, you had to explain in plain english what each subroutine did and what variables it would access and state whether it would simply read or read and write them (and then explain why). I remember him saying "If you're a professional programmer, there's a good chance you'll have a manager who isn't a programmer and they'll be reviewing your work!" I think he took his brother-in-laws advice too much to heart, because he really felt like he was giving us all a real taste of what being a "real" programmer was like. Sadly, this was 1998, and I suspect software development hadn't operated like that for a good 15-20 years (or if this was a weird practice localized to Motorola in the 70s) Any programming classes taught to minors should favor core fundamentals, exploration and creativity and avoid dwelling on industry practices which often have a shelf-life measured in years.
    - itronitron 8y ago
      >> "If you're a professional programmer, there's a good chance you'll have a manager This is the number one reason that schools should not try to teach students employable skills, because they usually get it very wrong. Teaching youngsters business processes that will be 10 years old when they graduate from college severely limits what they can achieve. I am all for teaching coding and other creative activities, but these should be explorations. Let the student discover on their own the degree of technical rigor they want to apply themselves to.
chrshawkes 8y ago
I've talked about this for a few years on my programming channel with millions of views. At least main stream news publications are now writing articles about it. This is a perfect example of just how clueless lawmakers can be. It's scary.
mjevans 8y ago
Coding might be aiming too high. A year of critical thinking and logical reasoning, how THAT is a general skill that can be applied everywhere. I'm not sure a whole year would need to be filled with that though, those skills would also be better grounded in reality. Combining those skills in to what used to be home ec (which I never had the opportunity to take) could be a good general life skills class.

edflsafoiewq 8y ago

Both math and music are often called languages. Of course that doesn't mean schools can replace foreign language requirements with them.

WorldMaker 8y ago

A music theory class can involve quite a bit of math. Often music theory can be taught as part of a larger music study. Just as there is room for music theory in a well-balanced music education, perhaps there is room for programming language study in a well-balanced linguistics education. That said, the goals of foreign language classes are rarely (strictly) about the arts and sciences linguistics, but more often targeted more directly towards the arts and sciences of culture, sociology, sometimes anthropology. (Programming languages are somewhat deficient in teaching useful life lessons in these other studies.)