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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 comput

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.
- gaadd33 13y ago
  Does NYC/NYS have certifications for programming/CS? It appears the only NYS certification for technology is a content specific one called "technology education" which I doubt has much of a focus on programming and probably more of a general "how to use computers" focus.
  - yeukhon 13y ago
    Although I am from NYC I have very little idea on how their certification works. What I do know is all my CS teachers back in HS are "qualified" (however you want to put it). They either have a degree in CS (one of them does), or have taken classes and passed some exams to demonstrate their ability prior to taking the job. I was really surprised to see our math teacher did a CS undergraduate.
    - gaadd33 13y ago
      I assume you went to either a private HS or Stuy? I know at my high school in PA, the programming teacher had an EE undergrad but was a math teacher who happened to be the most computer literate of the faculty. Our Cisco teacher was an accounting teacher, who I don't think had any sort of technical undergrad but was the most computer literate person they could find.
      - yeukhon 13y ago
        No. I went to Francis Lewis HS.
- spamizbad 13y ago
  This was not part of the AP curriculum, but it was billed (by the school) as a pre-req for AP Computer Science. It also wasn't really a CS class. It was more like a clumsy introduction to computer programming. The class never intended to cover data structures or algorithms.
- hga 13y ago
  My high school programming course, in 1977---IBM 1130 FORTRAN 'IV'---was taught by a coach. Who, without referring to notes, nor was it in the book, one day taught us 2s compliment representation on the blackboard (and boy was it useful to get a peek under the hood!). I suspect, like in the real world, programming ability still sometimes counts more than credentials. Pity that unlike my teacher he wasn't so good at the teaching part of it.
  - dandrews 13y ago
    Heh, Louden's book? Still got it here somewhere. For an hour of nostalgic fun and an excuse to burn a Bass Ale while your wife watches DWTS, take a look at the 1130 emulator at http://ibm1130.org/sim http://ibm1130.org/sim
    - Nate75Sanders 13y ago
      Wow, you really managed to do that in a thread pertaining to sexism in tech.
      - VLM 13y ago
        I thought the most hilarious thing about the HN comments was the 100% sexism oriented response WRT general HN culture, and nothing about hetronormativity or whatever its called, I currently work with a great tech, who happens to be female, and she also happens to have a wife, and I've worked with other women with the same family life as that in the past, so I was LOL the whole way about the HN "belief system" that apparently in 1950's HN world, only men can have wives. Another epic HN failure was confusing an obviously single word substitution issue like using the word wife instead of spouse as if it changes anything in the discussion other than the political correctness level, with actual intentional hate speech. You have to prioritize your problems and this is like "cut yourself shaving and also have a broken leg" one should be prioritized above the other. Something never discussed about sexism in tech, at least on HN, is its an almost purely coastie "brogrammer" phenomena. I am not part of the apparently locally dominant dirtbag coastie culture, so I literally do not understand how it perpetuates itself. To explain myself, locally, behavior that is rewarded tends to be repeated and behavior that is punished tends to be suppressed, and simultaneously a highly effective way for a guy to make sure all females will never be in contact with any of his precious bodily fluids is to go all "make me a sandwich" on any other female. Even a false accusation is fairly effective at enforcing celibacy. So I'm fairly mystified why this problem perpetuates. Like are all men on the coasts 40 year old virgins or gay, so they don't care about lack of "fun time" with women, or perhaps the women on the coasts refuse to stand up for each other and this is the inevitable result, or maybe secretly most women really love that kind of treatment and its only a small vocal minority who complain (although I find this last theory unlikely) The only real problem seems to be the lack of tech jobs in the midwest. Tech women, if you want to be treated with respect as human beings by professional gentlemen, move to where the gentlemen are if you want things to change. I'm off the market, but speaking for the local single gentlemen, I'm sure they'd greatly enjoy your presence here, unless you really secretly like how the brogrammers are treating you...
- numo16 13y ago
  From what I understand (gf just finished her education degree, michigan secondary ed), there isn't really a teachers certification for computer programming/CS classes in secondary. It is generally taught by someone who shows interest in teaching it AND if there is an opening for the class in the schedule AND if there is a budget to allow that elective AND it doesn't get in the way of whatever the school's administration deems to be important. The state of it is quite sad really...I know at the high school I graduated from, there was a programming course that was taught by the typing teacher, at one point (was no longer available by the time I would have been able to take it).
  - bcbroom 13y ago
    Its not just a prep issue (and yes, there are only a handful of CS Education programs in the US) but a state certification and curriculum issue. Education in the US is a State/local funded and regulated (only like 10% of public school funding is from the Federal Government). Teaching requirements for CS vary wildly from state to state, but in most places CS courses actually fall in the Business dept. The course most likely used VB because that is what the district mandated.
- cgag 13y ago
  My programming teacher was a math teacher who'd never programmed before. This doesn't seem to be unusual.
  - astrodust 13y ago
    This is like having a French instructor who only speaks English.
mmmooo 13y ago
I had a similar high school teacher, minus the brother-in-law, teaching a high school Pascal class 1-2 years out of college, being barely a chapter ahead. She would often state things like "you should always/never xxx". I happened to have been very comfortable with pascal at the time, and raised points with exceptions to the rule, and was told its "always/never". This lasted till next week when she would read the next chapter. She also demanded that every line be commented, however would only take a small percentage away (I think 5 or so), if one or all comments were missing. As I couldn't bring myself to comment everything, I would just use inline asm, which pascal supported at the time, with absolutely no comments. Since the rest of the grade relied on the program functioning, I did well. I thought it was cool at the time. Now I realize I didn't make her life easy, and probably should have.
mathattack 13y ago
There are two topics here, and the more important one is getting neglected. Almost by definition of being on this website, all of us are well advanced of our pre-college computer science teachers. My first was actually a chemistry teacher. My second was biology. One had me doing tech support in junior high. It wasn't until the AP class that I found one who could teach me. But teachers using outdated technology isn't the issue. The real issue of the article (and complaining about Visual Basic detracts from it) is a teacher who sets up an environment that tolerates harassment and bullying. It doesn't matter the discipline, the teacher failed all the students. The teacher failed the girl who dropped out of programming, and the teacher failed the bullies, by not pointing out that this behavior is wrong.
- sev 13y ago
  Although I agree completely, that's a very high expectation of teachers (pre-college) for the amount they get paid.
  - sologoub 13y ago
    That's a really sad comment. Teaching may not pay well, but the tenured teacher has significantly higher job security and potential for other incomes. Yes, it's not a typical programmer pay, but if you are taking it upon yourself to teach children, you take on far more responsibility than any pay can justify and you should act like it.
    - twelvechairs 13y ago
      That's easy to say but the world isn't so easy. being a teacher is hard and not paying well means you don't always attract the best people to do it. programmers also have job security of knowing they are basically always employable right now unless completely hopeless. and programmers have ethical responsibilities which are frequently ignored too.
      - sologoub 13y ago
        That's the path to mediocrity and failure...
mwilcox 13y ago
That's pretty much exactly the same as the programming classes I took in high school (New Zealand). After that I mainly kept to programming on the side as a hobby rather than for work, I'd be lying if I said my school experience didn't have some influence over it.

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.
gaadd33 13y ago
Does NYC/NYS have certifications for programming/CS? It appears the only NYS certification for technology is a content specific one called "technology education" which I doubt has much of a focus on programming and probably more of a general "how to use computers" focus.
- yeukhon 13y ago
  Although I am from NYC I have very little idea on how their certification works. What I do know is all my CS teachers back in HS are "qualified" (however you want to put it). They either have a degree in CS (one of them does), or have taken classes and passed some exams to demonstrate their ability prior to taking the job. I was really surprised to see our math teacher did a CS undergraduate.
  - gaadd33 13y ago
    I assume you went to either a private HS or Stuy? I know at my high school in PA, the programming teacher had an EE undergrad but was a math teacher who happened to be the most computer literate of the faculty. Our Cisco teacher was an accounting teacher, who I don't think had any sort of technical undergrad but was the most computer literate person they could find.
    - yeukhon 13y ago
      No. I went to Francis Lewis HS.
spamizbad 13y ago
This was not part of the AP curriculum, but it was billed (by the school) as a pre-req for AP Computer Science. It also wasn't really a CS class. It was more like a clumsy introduction to computer programming. The class never intended to cover data structures or algorithms.
hga 13y ago
My high school programming course, in 1977---IBM 1130 FORTRAN 'IV'---was taught by a coach. Who, without referring to notes, nor was it in the book, one day taught us 2s compliment representation on the blackboard (and boy was it useful to get a peek under the hood!). I suspect, like in the real world, programming ability still sometimes counts more than credentials. Pity that unlike my teacher he wasn't so good at the teaching part of it.
- dandrews 13y ago
  Heh, Louden's book? Still got it here somewhere. For an hour of nostalgic fun and an excuse to burn a Bass Ale while your wife watches DWTS, take a look at the 1130 emulator at http://ibm1130.org/sim http://ibm1130.org/sim
  - Nate75Sanders 13y ago
    Wow, you really managed to do that in a thread pertaining to sexism in tech.
    - VLM 13y ago
      I thought the most hilarious thing about the HN comments was the 100% sexism oriented response WRT general HN culture, and nothing about hetronormativity or whatever its called, I currently work with a great tech, who happens to be female, and she also happens to have a wife, and I've worked with other women with the same family life as that in the past, so I was LOL the whole way about the HN "belief system" that apparently in 1950's HN world, only men can have wives. Another epic HN failure was confusing an obviously single word substitution issue like using the word wife instead of spouse as if it changes anything in the discussion other than the political correctness level, with actual intentional hate speech. You have to prioritize your problems and this is like "cut yourself shaving and also have a broken leg" one should be prioritized above the other. Something never discussed about sexism in tech, at least on HN, is its an almost purely coastie "brogrammer" phenomena. I am not part of the apparently locally dominant dirtbag coastie culture, so I literally do not understand how it perpetuates itself. To explain myself, locally, behavior that is rewarded tends to be repeated and behavior that is punished tends to be suppressed, and simultaneously a highly effective way for a guy to make sure all females will never be in contact with any of his precious bodily fluids is to go all "make me a sandwich" on any other female. Even a false accusation is fairly effective at enforcing celibacy. So I'm fairly mystified why this problem perpetuates. Like are all men on the coasts 40 year old virgins or gay, so they don't care about lack of "fun time" with women, or perhaps the women on the coasts refuse to stand up for each other and this is the inevitable result, or maybe secretly most women really love that kind of treatment and its only a small vocal minority who complain (although I find this last theory unlikely) The only real problem seems to be the lack of tech jobs in the midwest. Tech women, if you want to be treated with respect as human beings by professional gentlemen, move to where the gentlemen are if you want things to change. I'm off the market, but speaking for the local single gentlemen, I'm sure they'd greatly enjoy your presence here, unless you really secretly like how the brogrammers are treating you...
numo16 13y ago
From what I understand (gf just finished her education degree, michigan secondary ed), there isn't really a teachers certification for computer programming/CS classes in secondary. It is generally taught by someone who shows interest in teaching it AND if there is an opening for the class in the schedule AND if there is a budget to allow that elective AND it doesn't get in the way of whatever the school's administration deems to be important. The state of it is quite sad really...I know at the high school I graduated from, there was a programming course that was taught by the typing teacher, at one point (was no longer available by the time I would have been able to take it).
- bcbroom 13y ago
  Its not just a prep issue (and yes, there are only a handful of CS Education programs in the US) but a state certification and curriculum issue. Education in the US is a State/local funded and regulated (only like 10% of public school funding is from the Federal Government). Teaching requirements for CS vary wildly from state to state, but in most places CS courses actually fall in the Business dept. The course most likely used VB because that is what the district mandated.
cgag 13y ago
My programming teacher was a math teacher who'd never programmed before. This doesn't seem to be unusual.
- astrodust 13y ago
  This is like having a French instructor who only speaks English.

mmmooo 13y ago

I had a similar high school teacher, minus the brother-in-law, teaching a high school Pascal class 1-2 years out of college, being barely a chapter ahead. She would often state things like "you should always/never xxx". I happened to have been very comfortable with pascal at the time, and raised points with exceptions to the rule, and was told its "always/never". This lasted till next week when she would read the next chapter. She also demanded that every line be commented, however would only take a small percentage away (I think 5 or so), if one or all comments were missing. As I couldn't bring myself to comment everything, I would just use inline asm, which pascal supported at the time, with absolutely no comments. Since the rest of the grade relied on the program functioning, I did well. I thought it was cool at the time. Now I realize I didn't make her life easy, and probably should have.

mathattack 13y ago

There are two topics here, and the more important one is getting neglected. Almost by definition of being on this website, all of us are well advanced of our pre-college computer science teachers. My first was actually a chemistry teacher. My second was biology. One had me doing tech support in junior high. It wasn't until the AP class that I found one who could teach me. But teachers using outdated technology isn't the issue. The real issue of the article (and complaining about Visual Basic detracts from it) is a teacher who sets up an environment that tolerates harassment and bullying. It doesn't matter the discipline, the teacher failed all the students. The teacher failed the girl who dropped out of programming, and the teacher failed the bullies, by not pointing out that this behavior is wrong.

sev 13y ago
Although I agree completely, that's a very high expectation of teachers (pre-college) for the amount they get paid.
- sologoub 13y ago
  That's a really sad comment. Teaching may not pay well, but the tenured teacher has significantly higher job security and potential for other incomes. Yes, it's not a typical programmer pay, but if you are taking it upon yourself to teach children, you take on far more responsibility than any pay can justify and you should act like it.
  - twelvechairs 13y ago
    That's easy to say but the world isn't so easy. being a teacher is hard and not paying well means you don't always attract the best people to do it. programmers also have job security of knowing they are basically always employable right now unless completely hopeless. and programmers have ethical responsibilities which are frequently ignored too.
    - sologoub 13y ago
      That's the path to mediocrity and failure...

mwilcox 13y ago

That's pretty much exactly the same as the programming classes I took in high school (New Zealand). After that I mainly kept to programming on the side as a hobby rather than for work, I'd be lying if I said my school experience didn't have some influence over it.