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Japan adding mandatory programming education to all elementary schools

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Re: Japan adding mandatory programming education to all elementary schools

#181

Post by elliotec »

imtringued wrote: post #129
elliotec wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no way it is on the same level as literacy and basic arithmetic, at least not for decades if not longer. Literacy rates in the modern world are close to 100%, near the same can add and subtract. Programmatic thinking requires much more effort and skill, at least right now, and that's why we are getting hella paid. It's almost like saying accounting or medicine is the same level as literacy. Or on the low end…

>that's why we are getting hella paid This has nothing to do with skill. As long as demand is higher than supply for your job you will be well paid. Median wages for lawyers are lower because there is an oversupply of workers on the job market.

True, but I think a good chunk of the reason it is in such demand still is because it requires a high level of skill to be able to fill that demand. And I'm not sure that would change with exposure in schooling.

Re: Japan adding mandatory programming education to all elementary schools

#182

Post by elliotec »

tedks wrote: post #108
elliotec wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no way it is on the same level as literacy and basic arithmetic, at least not for decades if not longer. Literacy rates in the modern world are close to 100%, near the same can add and subtract. Programmatic thinking requires much more effort and skill, at least right now, and that's why we are getting hella paid. It's almost like saying accounting or medicine is the same level as literacy. Or on the low end…

Good software engineering is ridiculously difficult to the extent that nobody gets it right, everything sucks everywhere, and there's no way to win. It requires a lot of domain expertise and background knowledge that goes far beyond just programming. That's why developers are, as you put it, hella paid. That said, programmatic thinking itself is much simpler. Learning how to think algorithmically and think about thin…

Ok, I don't disagree with that. So if they teach programmatic thinking in the ways you describe from a very young age, and they can apply it to realms outside software engineering, then it makes perfect sense to teach.

Re: Japan adding mandatory programming education to all elementary schools

#183

Post by ramgorur »

unabst wrote: post #68

In Japan, English is already mandatory, yet, English fluency sucks. Japan recognizes the problem, but doesn't know what to do about it. Basically, English education has yet to succeed. [1][2] This is the thing about Japan. They can make these moves that are incredibly progressive and ambitious -- visionary even, yet, they really have no idea how to go about doing it. As it stands, they don't have enough teachers that…

I can learn programming if I have a programming text translated to my language, right?

I don't quite understand why learning english is relevant here.

Re: Japan adding mandatory programming education to all elementary schools

#184

Post by unabst »

lloeki wrote: post #131
unabst wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are correct that almost everybody is familiar with English, but that's not speaking it, let alone being fluent. To a degree, English already is part of the Japanese culture and language. But it's a different English. Some of it is compatible, but native speakers are the one's graciously degrading (to use a web programming term) to meet their level, and not them meeting you at a level you're accustomed to speaking…

> You are correct that almost everybody is familiar with English, but that's not speaking it, let alone being fluent. Compare with a hypothetical Japan where the program would not be put in place and all those people "merely" familiar with English were not at all. It'd be ridiculous to suppose such a plan would lead to 100% (or even 50%) of people being fluent. > The goal is for fluency, How many would have not been…

You underestimate how introverted and isolationist Japanese default culture still can be. Those devs aren't contributing because they feel competent or fluent. They're contributing despite not being. They have the capacity to take initiative and not be shy. This is a separate trait altogether, which isn't even being discussed let alone being made mandatory.

And ultimately, these devs speak code, which provides a common objective baseline for exchanging substance (which everyone certainly refers to if they can't decode their English). Their confidence likely stems for them objectively knowing how good their code is.

This is the case with science and mathematics, and with the bilingual students also. The best Japanese talent are all competitive at a global level. They aren't the issue. Them being rare is the issue. And though they should become assets to Japan, they quickly assimilate to the global community, at which point, the global community tends to appreciate and reward these people more. Many, if not most, end up in Silicon Valley or Hollywood or just working for a foreign company. Overachievers have a hard time in seniority based bureaucracies which most of Japan still is.

As marak830 commented here,

> I teach high school student part time (so I can work on my side project), and the

> teachers over the age of 40ish have pretty terrible English(these are English

> teachers), but all of the newer ones have pretty good levels.

That wouldn't be that big of a problem in a meritocracy. And it's going to be far worse with a modern skill like programming.

Re: Japan adding mandatory programming education to all elementary schools

#185

Post by eru »

kleer001 wrote: post #58
eru wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alas, that doesn't mean that mandatory teaching will make people competent at it. (We have pretty widespread teaching of programming in high schools in Germany. Doesn't help too much.)

Does it seem to help much at all with the political sphere? In US politicos seem to me to be pretty ignorant of some of the finer points, but that may be an age thing too.

Don't think it has any effect. Why would it?

Any effects of education are swamped by the differences in voting systems. Germany has Mixed-member proportional representation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mixed-member_proportional_repr...), which leads to a multi-party system.

The US has some variation of first-past-the-post. Especially together with the primary system, this rewards people for pandering to the base.

Re: Japan adding mandatory programming education to all elementary schools

#186

Post by eru »

LionessLover wrote: post #162
kleer001 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does it seem to help much at all with the political sphere? In US politicos seem to me to be pretty ignorant of some of the finer points, but that may be an age thing too.

Politicians will start being competent as soon as the populace giving them jobs values that trait enough. That also includes keeping the loudly howling minorities for any given topic in check that raises hell whenever a person in public view seems to disagree with them, thereby teaching such people that lying and pretending is the best option.

And the population will reward more reasonable people, when that becomes a useful tactic in voting.

First-past-the-post basically forces you to vote for the idiot, or risk throwing away your vote.

Re: Japan adding mandatory programming education to all elementary schools

#187

Post by mikekchar »

allendoerfer wrote: post #174
mikekchar wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know when you taught here, so hard to say but a couple of things have changed in the last 10 years or so. First, they have introduced a "foreign language" class for elementary school children. I know some people who have taught it and they have a lot of praise for the program. It focusses on simply interacting with foreigners and includes many different languages. Personally, I've noticed a big difference in…

English skills of people in their early twenties still suck. There are programs in Japanese universities where foreigners teach locals English. Some of these teachers are from Australia, but for most of them English is not their first language either.

Keep in mind that your average 10 year old native English speaker also sucks at English. Sit them down in front of the TV and have them explain what was said on the news. Generally, they can't do it because their English is actually not good enough to understand.

Learners of a second language are often at a disadvantage because they expect adult level proficiency in a short period of time. They often forgo focussing on fluency in order to chase that proficiency. In the end they fail at both.

Some of the most unfortunate myths that persist about language learning really hurt. For example, if you ask the average person how many words of vocabulary they need to be "fluent", they often pick numbers like 2000. But that's the level of vocabulary for a 2 or 3 year old. Adult level proficiency requires upwards of 20,000 word families.

Basically, what I'm trying to get at is that English skills of people in their early twenties are guaranteed to suck unless they are using English almost as much as their native language. It takes native people 10-20 years to get a good level of proficiency. What we can hope to do is to refocus education on fluency rather than proficiency so that at least people can converse freely in a small area. Then over time they will gradually accumulate proficiency in other areas.

This opinion is unfortunately not widely shared in the teaching profession at large :-(

Re: Japan adding mandatory programming education to all elementary schools

#188

Post by simunaga »

imtringued wrote: post #126
simunaga wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. The situation when robots not only take the people jobs but because of the robots new jobs get created, comes to mind. Isn't it similar to that? Yet, I think that robots don't create as many jobs as they take.

Right now a lack of robots is actually the problem. Otherwise we wouldn't even consider outsourcing manufacturing to asia.

problem for whom? how's that a problem that people is asia now are able to earn money?

Re: Japan adding mandatory programming education to all elementary schools

#189

Post by simunaga »

DasIch wrote: post #139
simunaga wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why be optimistic at all? The more people are able to code, the less demand for it, the less salaries of the programmers.

There wouldn't be less demand, there would be a higher supply. In any case IoT is doing it's best to massively increase demand for programmers. Once everything is sufficiently IoTified programming will be as common a tool as a hammer.

and? higher supply cases less demand. it's as simple as 2+2.

Re: Japan adding mandatory programming education to all elementary schools

#190

Post by damptowel »

tedks wrote: post #108
elliotec wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no way it is on the same level as literacy and basic arithmetic, at least not for decades if not longer. Literacy rates in the modern world are close to 100%, near the same can add and subtract. Programmatic thinking requires much more effort and skill, at least right now, and that's why we are getting hella paid. It's almost like saying accounting or medicine is the same level as literacy. Or on the low end…

Good software engineering is ridiculously difficult to the extent that nobody gets it right, everything sucks everywhere, and there's no way to win. It requires a lot of domain expertise and background knowledge that goes far beyond just programming. That's why developers are, as you put it, hella paid. That said, programmatic thinking itself is much simpler. Learning how to think algorithmically and think about thin…

My course started with learning structured programming logic by drawing structograms. From 'what is a variable?' to several sorting algorithms and their time complexity. No keyboard was touched, everything was computed by hand to tables. I found it hugely satisfying and think just doing the thinking-like-a-machine bit is a great addition to any curriculum. It doesn't need to make programmers out of every one, it just needs to show young students that programming isn't this black art only math geniuses can aspire to, because it's too often portrayed that way.
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