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I'm more conservative, I think it's fine that you have to make an argument and persuade if you want CS taught in schools because such decisions should be made a

by jiggy2011 14y ago

I'm more conservative, I think it's fine that you have to make an argument and persuade if you want CS taught in schools because such decisions should be made after strong consideration by parents, teachers and other experts. My problem isn't so much with parents who might teach their kids extra programming classes or whatever. It's with parents who may be incapable of (or unwilling to) teaching their kids anything (and therefor raise kids who are also incapable of teaching) or parents who will teach nothing but creationism/scientology or whatever. Or parents who would decide on some career they want their kids to follow and try and teach them everything around that without long term consideration. Plenty of parents would rather their kids be good at sports than math for example. I would be concerned that we would see something of a return to a caste system since what parents would be most qualified to teach would be what they themselves do. Environment is also important for teaching, some of the environments in low income parts of the UK would be environments unsuitable for learning. Loud noises, drug/alcohol abuse, domestic violence etc. At least having a school gives kids somewhere they can go and at least have some chance of learning.

tolmasky 14y ago
I think the problem is that you are interpreting my statements through the vector of convincing others to teach their kids certain things. For example, you are seeing me as wanting everyone to learn CS. This isn't the case at all, I simply want a system where those that want to have their children taught CS can easily do so, which is the opposite of the system we have today. The problem is that the "strong consideration" of the individual parent is largely inconsequential because the decision making process has been largely collectivized. I can agree that if we are going to force other people's children to learn certain things then it might merit some big conversation but that's not what I want. Ironically, I think this very process has perpetuated the dilemma you fear: it encourages and perpetuates a culture of not worrying about your child's education and "leaving it up to the experts". Secondly, having every parent teach their kid is not the only alternative to the public school system we have today. There are a spectrum of possibilities, from simply having less state/federal standards (I don't really care what Senator X from state that I have no representation in thinks about our education), to private schools. But, if we are focusing solely on "homeschooling", a friend of mine for example was "neighborhood-schooled". Each parent had a day with them, and each parent taught them what they were good at.
- jiggy2011 14y ago
  I'm more concerned about the bottom end than the top end. Whether or not you teach kids CS at school is a minor point in the scale of things especially since you can always teach them extra stuff after school. Responsible parents will make sure that their kids get a decent education by selecting a good school or by homeschooling. The problem is, if a parent decides "I don't want my kid to bother learning math" then you completely close off a huge number of potential high-earning careers to the child. Or worse, parents who are apathetic towards education and who's kids are unlikely to learn much of anything. In other words, I would disagree that parents are necessarily better at selecting an education for their children. This is especially important because education is important to social mobility. For example the potential for a kid brought up in some redneck park/council estate who goes to school and finds that they are good at math and goes on to become a programmer/banker or whatever.

tolmasky 14y ago

I think the problem is that you are interpreting my statements through the vector of convincing others to teach their kids certain things. For example, you are seeing me as wanting everyone to learn CS. This isn't the case at all, I simply want a system where those that want to have their children taught CS can easily do so, which is the opposite of the system we have today. The problem is that the "strong consideration" of the individual parent is largely inconsequential because the decision making process has been largely collectivized. I can agree that if we are going to force other people's children to learn certain things then it might merit some big conversation but that's not what I want. Ironically, I think this very process has perpetuated the dilemma you fear: it encourages and perpetuates a culture of not worrying about your child's education and "leaving it up to the experts". Secondly, having every parent teach their kid is not the only alternative to the public school system we have today. There are a spectrum of possibilities, from simply having less state/federal standards (I don't really care what Senator X from state that I have no representation in thinks about our education), to private schools. But, if we are focusing solely on "homeschooling", a friend of mine for example was "neighborhood-schooled". Each parent had a day with them, and each parent taught them what they were good at.

jiggy2011 14y ago
I'm more concerned about the bottom end than the top end. Whether or not you teach kids CS at school is a minor point in the scale of things especially since you can always teach them extra stuff after school. Responsible parents will make sure that their kids get a decent education by selecting a good school or by homeschooling. The problem is, if a parent decides "I don't want my kid to bother learning math" then you completely close off a huge number of potential high-earning careers to the child. Or worse, parents who are apathetic towards education and who's kids are unlikely to learn much of anything. In other words, I would disagree that parents are necessarily better at selecting an education for their children. This is especially important because education is important to social mobility. For example the potential for a kid brought up in some redneck park/council estate who goes to school and finds that they are good at math and goes on to become a programmer/banker or whatever.