9 ms·

If CS education in the USA is anything like here, the teacher of this class will be the unlucky fellow assigned with maintaining the school networks and other r

If CS education in the USA is anything like here, the teacher of this class will be the unlucky fellow assigned with maintaining the school networks and other random "computer stuff". His qualification will be that of an interested layman, augmented by several one day seminars on random topics from Office to Java. There is simply no curriculum, there are no standards and no requirements, and if we are honest, the level of computing in most schools and even businesses are a very far cry from the high-tech filter bubble we surround ourselves in.

spamizbad 13y ago
My Programming I class was taught by a math teacher (who was an excellent algebra instructor). Unfortunately he was only a chapter ahead of the class in computer programming. But that wasn't the worst part. For guidance, he turned to his brother-in-law, who was a manager of developers at Motorola. He stated as much the first day of class, boasting "You're going to have the rare treat of learning how programming is done in the real world!" All the joy of programming was quickly sucked out as we had to meticulously document our code. Sub routines needed 2-3 paragraph plain-English explanations of what they were doing. Each variable's purpose needed to be stated. And before you could write a single line of code, you first had to write it out in a form of "pseudo code" which had its own syntax rules that we had to follow. Lots of emphasis was placed on the process of what we should be doing instead of the how and why. Students struggled. I understand what he was trying to do: having us write everything out gave him a window into how our minds were breaking down the problem. But in the process, he turned what should have been a fun, exploratory class into a grind. The notion that programming could be a fun activity, and not just mindless, process-driven office work was completely foreign to him, and I suspect the same is true for many teachers who are stuck teaching Programming classes in both public and private schools. Edit: And on the issue of gender, my class had 25 students, 11 of whom were girls. I remember being amazed at how a programming class could have a 50/50 ratio. I didn't notice anyone being bullied or teased. I imagine once women reach "critical mass" women won't be singled-out to the same degree. A few bad apples or even a sexist teacher can't "single out" 44% of their class. Why were there so girls enrolled? I don't know, but the class did have a reputation for being an easy A, so perhaps it was viewed as less intimidating.
- yeukhon 13y ago
  How does he get through the course certification? Shouldn't he has to demonstrate he has the qualification to teach CS class? Is this a high school from a small town? I'd imagine in NYC this could mean firing the school's principal if New York Daily finds out.
  - eru 13y ago
    Why? On paper I can describe those lecture in glowing terms, if necessary. Just rewriting spamizbad's comment with the right buzzwords, and leaving out the student dissatisfaction.
    - yeukhon 13y ago
      Well same is true for any class right? haha. the question is, why would we want someone no experience with programming to teach programming class to our kids?
      - sliverstorm 13y ago
        Because it's that, or nothing? It's not like high schools are rolling in money. Even if they could afford to hire an extra teacher just to teach programming, what programmer would want to teach for $20k when he can make (at least according to HN) $120k in the industry?
        briandear 13y ago
        $20k? There is no full-time public school teacher making that. In Jersey City, teachers averaged in 2012 $67,412 with a contractually-limited 183 work days per year, that includes inservice/training days and excludes up to 8 personal days and additional sick days; with each day lasting a maximum of about 7 hours, including about a 40 minute lunch period. If a programmer gets 3 paid weeks of vacation per year, they work approximately 219 days per year. At an average salary of say $100,000 that's about $456 per work day. And often that includes no pension/retirement benefits. A teacher makes about $368 per day, however a teacher in New Jersey with 20 years service gets about 36% of the average of their three highest salary years as retirement income -- for life. I'm not crying over teacher pay. That they don't get paid enough is propaganda from the teachers unions. Yes I realize that teachers work after hours grading papers, etc. However programmers often work late into the night as well without extra money too. Programmers often spend their own money (along with teachers) on extra software, tools and other things to help them do their job better without necessarily getting a reimbursement. I'd rather be crying over administrators that continually make unenlughtened decisions about curriculum, methodology and creativity.
zalambar 13y ago
If students are being harassed and driven away from a subject by their peers I don't think the out of date curriculum is the most significant problem in that classroom.
- revelation 13y ago
  This is a high-school, so pubescent boys making disparaging remarks and teachers unable to control class are both expected and completely mundane. Certainly they wouldn't make it into a USENIX blog post, and I don't think anybody would infer from these events that "tech is sexist". So the curriculum was the best reason I could figure why this is on USENIX. (I certainly don't want to excuse the shortcomings of this particular teacher, and there are many, but I think the system is setup for failure)
patmcc 13y ago
That's not the problem described in the article though - it's an entirely non-technical issue about harassment, sexism, and general acceptable classroom behaviour. It's not about the level of computing knowledge at all.
- gph 13y ago
  I think you're missing the point of the parent comment. All teachers have to go through a degree/certificate program that would train them on how to deal with high school kids and what to do about harassment, etc. The guy teaching this class is probably just an IT guy at the school whom they recruited into 'teaching' this class. That's how it was at my high school. It was the network/IT guy that taught the class. He was really cool and a pretty damn good teacher, but I don't know if he'd be able to spot harassment like this or do anything about it. We didn't have any girls in our class anyway, so I guess my anecdote can't add anything to that. Edit: Actually reading the other comments by the parent shows me that you interpreted it correctly. Still I think what I said has some merit to it.
avalaunch 13y ago
When I took my first programming class in Junior High they chose the teacher because she was the typing instructor, and you know, how different can a computer be from a typewriter? After all, they both have keyboards. Thankfully I had already taught myself one programming language so I was able to pick up another without much difficulty.
dangoldin 13y ago
A little off tangent but this year I started volunteering for an organization called TEALS (http://tealsk12.org/ http://tealsk12.org/) that's trying to address this by having developers teach into and AP computer science in high school. I'm currently teaching AP CS remotely to a school in Kentucky - it's extremely challenging and a huge time commitment but being able to get students excited about computer science and seeing them succeed in their programs is worth it. I suggest everyone to check it out - if you're near a local school you can actually teach a class in person. Also - if you have any questions feel free to email me - username @ gmail
- zhte415 13y ago
  I don't think that's off-topic at all. Getting kids enthusiastic about computer science at a critical age, in an inclusive learning environment, with knowledgeable passionate mentors, is highly commendable and relevant. Good on you.
  - dangoldin 13y ago
    Thanks! Just trying to get more people on HN involved in the program.
philwelch 13y ago
In this economy, someone with any worthwhile amount of knowledge and interest in programming has better opportunities than being a schoolteacher. And that's on top of the mediocrity-enforcing effects of the unionized teaching profession.
sanderjd 13y ago
Here's the thing - I would love to teach computer science to young people, but in order to do so, I would have to pay for more education and certification for the privilege of participating in a much tougher job market for significantly lower wages. I just can't see any way that it makes sense, and that's a real shame.
kabdib 13y ago
Our high school programming teacher was a math teacher who knew to keep the kids in the back -- the ones who finished reading the textbook in the first hour or so of class -- completely alone. We didn't cause trouble, and we were quite helpful to the other students in the labs. At one point we were asked, politely, to stop crashing the county's mainframe (which was the platform we were using). So we stopped. Girls? I don't recall girls. They must have been there; I don't think we noticed. We certainly didn't harass them, and we probably tried to help them. We were geeks and tools and had no idea how to interact with 'em, for the most part. The OP's story saddens me.

spamizbad 13y ago

My Programming I class was taught by a math teacher (who was an excellent algebra instructor). Unfortunately he was only a chapter ahead of the class in computer programming. But that wasn't the worst part. For guidance, he turned to his brother-in-law, who was a manager of developers at Motorola. He stated as much the first day of class, boasting "You're going to have the rare treat of learning how programming is done in the real world!" All the joy of programming was quickly sucked out as we had to meticulously document our code. Sub routines needed 2-3 paragraph plain-English explanations of what they were doing. Each variable's purpose needed to be stated. And before you could write a single line of code, you first had to write it out in a form of "pseudo code" which had its own syntax rules that we had to follow. Lots of emphasis was placed on the process of what we should be doing instead of the how and why. Students struggled. I understand what he was trying to do: having us write everything out gave him a window into how our minds were breaking down the problem. But in the process, he turned what should have been a fun, exploratory class into a grind. The notion that programming could be a fun activity, and not just mindless, process-driven office work was completely foreign to him, and I suspect the same is true for many teachers who are stuck teaching Programming classes in both public and private schools. Edit: And on the issue of gender, my class had 25 students, 11 of whom were girls. I remember being amazed at how a programming class could have a 50/50 ratio. I didn't notice anyone being bullied or teased. I imagine once women reach "critical mass" women won't be singled-out to the same degree. A few bad apples or even a sexist teacher can't "single out" 44% of their class. Why were there so girls enrolled? I don't know, but the class did have a reputation for being an easy A, so perhaps it was viewed as less intimidating.

yeukhon 13y ago
How does he get through the course certification? Shouldn't he has to demonstrate he has the qualification to teach CS class? Is this a high school from a small town? I'd imagine in NYC this could mean firing the school's principal if New York Daily finds out.
- eru 13y ago
  Why? On paper I can describe those lecture in glowing terms, if necessary. Just rewriting spamizbad's comment with the right buzzwords, and leaving out the student dissatisfaction.
  - yeukhon 13y ago
    Well same is true for any class right? haha. the question is, why would we want someone no experience with programming to teach programming class to our kids?
    - sliverstorm 13y ago
      Because it's that, or nothing? It's not like high schools are rolling in money. Even if they could afford to hire an extra teacher just to teach programming, what programmer would want to teach for $20k when he can make (at least according to HN) $120k in the industry?
      - briandear 13y ago
        $20k? There is no full-time public school teacher making that. In Jersey City, teachers averaged in 2012 $67,412 with a contractually-limited 183 work days per year, that includes inservice/training days and excludes up to 8 personal days and additional sick days; with each day lasting a maximum of about 7 hours, including about a 40 minute lunch period. If a programmer gets 3 paid weeks of vacation per year, they work approximately 219 days per year. At an average salary of say $100,000 that's about $456 per work day. And often that includes no pension/retirement benefits. A teacher makes about $368 per day, however a teacher in New Jersey with 20 years service gets about 36% of the average of their three highest salary years as retirement income -- for life. I'm not crying over teacher pay. That they don't get paid enough is propaganda from the teachers unions. Yes I realize that teachers work after hours grading papers, etc. However programmers often work late into the night as well without extra money too. Programmers often spend their own money (along with teachers) on extra software, tools and other things to help them do their job better without necessarily getting a reimbursement. I'd rather be crying over administrators that continually make unenlughtened decisions about curriculum, methodology and creativity.

zalambar 13y ago

If students are being harassed and driven away from a subject by their peers I don't think the out of date curriculum is the most significant problem in that classroom.

revelation 13y ago
This is a high-school, so pubescent boys making disparaging remarks and teachers unable to control class are both expected and completely mundane. Certainly they wouldn't make it into a USENIX blog post, and I don't think anybody would infer from these events that "tech is sexist". So the curriculum was the best reason I could figure why this is on USENIX. (I certainly don't want to excuse the shortcomings of this particular teacher, and there are many, but I think the system is setup for failure)

patmcc 13y ago

That's not the problem described in the article though - it's an entirely non-technical issue about harassment, sexism, and general acceptable classroom behaviour. It's not about the level of computing knowledge at all.

gph 13y ago
I think you're missing the point of the parent comment. All teachers have to go through a degree/certificate program that would train them on how to deal with high school kids and what to do about harassment, etc. The guy teaching this class is probably just an IT guy at the school whom they recruited into 'teaching' this class. That's how it was at my high school. It was the network/IT guy that taught the class. He was really cool and a pretty damn good teacher, but I don't know if he'd be able to spot harassment like this or do anything about it. We didn't have any girls in our class anyway, so I guess my anecdote can't add anything to that. Edit: Actually reading the other comments by the parent shows me that you interpreted it correctly. Still I think what I said has some merit to it.

avalaunch 13y ago

When I took my first programming class in Junior High they chose the teacher because she was the typing instructor, and you know, how different can a computer be from a typewriter? After all, they both have keyboards. Thankfully I had already taught myself one programming language so I was able to pick up another without much difficulty.

dangoldin 13y ago

A little off tangent but this year I started volunteering for an organization called TEALS (http://tealsk12.org/ http://tealsk12.org/) that's trying to address this by having developers teach into and AP computer science in high school. I'm currently teaching AP CS remotely to a school in Kentucky - it's extremely challenging and a huge time commitment but being able to get students excited about computer science and seeing them succeed in their programs is worth it. I suggest everyone to check it out - if you're near a local school you can actually teach a class in person. Also - if you have any questions feel free to email me - username @ gmail

zhte415 13y ago
I don't think that's off-topic at all. Getting kids enthusiastic about computer science at a critical age, in an inclusive learning environment, with knowledgeable passionate mentors, is highly commendable and relevant. Good on you.
- dangoldin 13y ago
  Thanks! Just trying to get more people on HN involved in the program.

philwelch 13y ago

In this economy, someone with any worthwhile amount of knowledge and interest in programming has better opportunities than being a schoolteacher. And that's on top of the mediocrity-enforcing effects of the unionized teaching profession.

sanderjd 13y ago

Here's the thing - I would love to teach computer science to young people, but in order to do so, I would have to pay for more education and certification for the privilege of participating in a much tougher job market for significantly lower wages. I just can't see any way that it makes sense, and that's a real shame.

kabdib 13y ago

Our high school programming teacher was a math teacher who knew to keep the kids in the back -- the ones who finished reading the textbook in the first hour or so of class -- completely alone. We didn't cause trouble, and we were quite helpful to the other students in the labs. At one point we were asked, politely, to stop crashing the county's mainframe (which was the platform we were using). So we stopped. Girls? I don't recall girls. They must have been there; I don't think we noticed. We certainly didn't harass them, and we probably tried to help them. We were geeks and tools and had no idea how to interact with 'em, for the most part. The OP's story saddens me.