4 ms·

Lessons Learned: Please teach kids programming, Mr. President

14 points by babyshake 18y ago

TomOfTTB 18y ago
First, Barack Obama is not Santa Clause. I'm really indifferent towards the man at this point (don't really like him, liked McCain even less) but the one thing that really bothers me is this idea that we should just all sit down and let President Obama do everything for us. If the author here really cares about what he's saying he should write a lesson plan that teaches programming and send it to schools. Put up a website that asks for support of his lesson plan. Solicit donations for computers in classrooms. Overall just get off his own @$$ and try to make it happen. Finally, I don't see what DRM and banning Cell Phones has anything to do with teaching technology to kids but I can say his first point is largely wrong. I grew up in public funded housing (aka the projects) and even we had computers in our classrooms. If someone can find me the high school that is completely without computers in the U.S. I'd like to see it becasue I think it's just a myth.
- bmj 18y ago
  The cell phone point is particularly out of place. How many kids are taking class notes on their cell phones? I'll take your suggestion a bit further--I think, instead of looking to the government to implement these changes, why not provide an opportunity for bright kids to opt out of the current system? Enable cooperatives and networks to provide the kids with environments that will them flourish.
  - TomOfTTB 18y ago
    On that note, I have been experimenting with these (http://www.amazon.com/E09XPH-9-Inch-2goPC-Celeron-Processor/dp/B0016OJXGQ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1235361249&sr=8-1 http://www.amazon.com/E09XPH-9-Inch-2goPC-Celeron-Processor/...) for the facility I work with and have been pleasantly surprised. If someone wanted to provide younger kids a chance to flourish without spending too much I'd take a serious look at picking up a few of these.
  - jamii 18y ago
    > How many kids are taking class notes on their cell phones? I've started taking lecture notes on my android phone. Its surprising how having an open phone and a decent keyboard makes you rethink the amount of computing power you carry around in your pocket. I recently went to a seminar on pervasive computing where one of the speakers demonstrated that audience members could learn to type accurately on a chording keyboard without looking at the screen. I was going at 25-30wpm already by the end of the lecture. A cheap bluetooth version would make subtle notetaking really easy.
lazyant 18y ago
Don't teach kids programming; teach them science, math, languages, geography, music etc. Most people are doing fine and use the computers without knowing how to program and I drive a car and don't know how to build or repair one. To prepare kids for technology teach them science, logic and math.
- patio11 18y ago
  I largely agree, but I've always had this little bit of me that says "Most people do not need to know most sciences". I mean, we don't teach circuit design to everybody, on the sensible principle that most people will never design a circuit. But we teach the anatomy of worms to everybody because... most people will eventually have a pressing need to dissect a worm? I mean, I'm not the world's most accomplished programmer by any stretch of the imagination, but I very rarely get asked by the bosses "Hey, Patrick, after you get done with that Javascript, could you please pull the heart out of the worm on my desk?" I was also forced as a child to learn about some rocks floating around in the general vicinity of the sun. I still don't know why these rocks matter -- my best guess is that pre-modern civilizations thought they were gods, poets picked up on it, and people now consider the notion of travel to them sort of romantic. I'm at a loss as to how learning about rocks prepares one for programming, unless one aims to be one of the few hundred programmers engaged in writing software to control missions to space aimed at getting ever-more-detailed photos of the rocks "for scientific purposes". Ditto lab chemistry. Titration is a) technician work -- its a repetitive process with about as much intellectual content as swapping hard drives which b) will be performed by perhaps half of a percent of the population in their lives, if that. Yet we make everyone do it. It makes about as much sense as making woodcarving mandatory for everyone... because you never know, right?
  - ori_b 18y ago
    Because I'm certain that you wanted to be a programmer from the moment that you entered high school, and it never benefitted you to have even a vague idea of what other people do for a living? Let alone intellectual curiosity.
- ori_b 18y ago
chiffonade 18y ago
Programmers tend to teach themselves. I wouldn't worry about it, Mr. President.
known 18y ago
Why not teach Programming + Politics
Kototama 18y ago
We are nerds, after all. Here's the most striking thing about the statistics of this post: the average "age when started programming" is 13. Think of how many 10-year-olds there must be in the data to balance out the occasional person who started mid-career. No because the sample is biased. People who read stackoverflow are nerds and more incline to have begin programming early and mid-career starters are more incline to not read it.

14 points by babyshake 18y ago

First, Barack Obama is not Santa Clause. I'm really indifferent towards the man at this point (don't really like him, liked McCain even less) but the one thing that really bothers me is this idea that we should just all sit down and let President Obama do everything for us. If the author here really cares about what he's saying he should write a lesson plan that teaches programming and send it to schools. Put up a website that asks for support of his lesson plan. Solicit donations for computers in classrooms. Overall just get off his own @$$ and try to make it happen. Finally, I don't see what DRM and banning Cell Phones has anything to do with teaching technology to kids but I can say his first point is largely wrong. I grew up in public funded housing (aka the projects) and even we had computers in our classrooms. If someone can find me the high school that is completely without computers in the U.S. I'd like to see it becasue I think it's just a myth.

bmj 18y ago
The cell phone point is particularly out of place. How many kids are taking class notes on their cell phones? I'll take your suggestion a bit further--I think, instead of looking to the government to implement these changes, why not provide an opportunity for bright kids to opt out of the current system? Enable cooperatives and networks to provide the kids with environments that will them flourish.
- TomOfTTB 18y ago
  On that note, I have been experimenting with these (http://www.amazon.com/E09XPH-9-Inch-2goPC-Celeron-Processor/dp/B0016OJXGQ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1235361249&sr=8-1 http://www.amazon.com/E09XPH-9-Inch-2goPC-Celeron-Processor/...) for the facility I work with and have been pleasantly surprised. If someone wanted to provide younger kids a chance to flourish without spending too much I'd take a serious look at picking up a few of these.
- jamii 18y ago
  > How many kids are taking class notes on their cell phones? I've started taking lecture notes on my android phone. Its surprising how having an open phone and a decent keyboard makes you rethink the amount of computing power you carry around in your pocket. I recently went to a seminar on pervasive computing where one of the speakers demonstrated that audience members could learn to type accurately on a chording keyboard without looking at the screen. I was going at 25-30wpm already by the end of the lecture. A cheap bluetooth version would make subtle notetaking really easy.

lazyant 18y ago

Don't teach kids programming; teach them science, math, languages, geography, music etc. Most people are doing fine and use the computers without knowing how to program and I drive a car and don't know how to build or repair one. To prepare kids for technology teach them science, logic and math.

patio11 18y ago
I largely agree, but I've always had this little bit of me that says "Most people do not need to know most sciences". I mean, we don't teach circuit design to everybody, on the sensible principle that most people will never design a circuit. But we teach the anatomy of worms to everybody because... most people will eventually have a pressing need to dissect a worm? I mean, I'm not the world's most accomplished programmer by any stretch of the imagination, but I very rarely get asked by the bosses "Hey, Patrick, after you get done with that Javascript, could you please pull the heart out of the worm on my desk?" I was also forced as a child to learn about some rocks floating around in the general vicinity of the sun. I still don't know why these rocks matter -- my best guess is that pre-modern civilizations thought they were gods, poets picked up on it, and people now consider the notion of travel to them sort of romantic. I'm at a loss as to how learning about rocks prepares one for programming, unless one aims to be one of the few hundred programmers engaged in writing software to control missions to space aimed at getting ever-more-detailed photos of the rocks "for scientific purposes". Ditto lab chemistry. Titration is a) technician work -- its a repetitive process with about as much intellectual content as swapping hard drives which b) will be performed by perhaps half of a percent of the population in their lives, if that. Yet we make everyone do it. It makes about as much sense as making woodcarving mandatory for everyone... because you never know, right?
- ori_b 18y ago
  Because I'm certain that you wanted to be a programmer from the moment that you entered high school, and it never benefitted you to have even a vague idea of what other people do for a living? Let alone intellectual curiosity.
ori_b 18y ago

chiffonade 18y ago

Programmers tend to teach themselves. I wouldn't worry about it, Mr. President.

known 18y ago

Why not teach Programming + Politics

Kototama 18y ago

We are nerds, after all. Here's the most striking thing about the statistics of this post: the average "age when started programming" is 13. Think of how many 10-year-olds there must be in the data to balance out the occasional person who started mid-career. No because the sample is biased. People who read stackoverflow are nerds and more incline to have begin programming early and mid-career starters are more incline to not read it.