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To my daughter's high school programming teacher

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Re: To my daughter's high school programming teacher

#191

Post by twelvechairs »

sologoub wrote: post #178
sev wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Although I agree completely, that's a very high expectation of teachers (pre-college) for the amount they get paid.

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.

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.

Re: To my daughter's high school programming teacher

#192

Post by omni »

jessedhillon wrote: post #124
jpatokal wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously? You should be thanking the large, smart man for teaching you the correctness of a wise set of rules designed to maximize the number of people who can use the limited number of seats in a popular fast food joint. Unless you called ahead and made a booking, you had no right to reserve those seats and inconvenience all the other people (including said gentleman and his family) looking for a seat.

A) I was in college then. I'm inclined to agree with the reasoning you gave here now. B) But, the reason he gave was that it was against "the rules" -- that's the point: no, it's not. It's rude and inconvenient, maybe. It's not an abrogation of a code that everyone knows. It's an unwritten agreement, at best.

From your telling of the story, he was referring to the set of unwritten rules that I personally refer to as "the social contract," which you absolutely broke by selfishly reserving a table ahead of a family that, by your own admission, had their ice cream and was ready to eat before you were.

Re: To my daughter's high school programming teacher

#193

Post by leephillips »

waveman2 wrote: post #87
tptacek wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You were bullied viciously in high school, and the perverse result appears to be that you've become in adulthood a defender of bullying.

No I am saying that trivia is trivia. What happened is at worst micro-bullying. Actually I suspect the daughter did not want to do the course, was pressured into it by her mother and pickup on on this minor incident as an excuse to stop the course.

I think you skimmed the article too fast. Try reading most of the words.

Re: To my daughter's high school programming teacher

#194

Post by danabenson »

interpol_p wrote: post #127
bangbang wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kids say terrible things. This isn't the sign of a bad teacher or a worthy of a internet rant, it's an opportunity to prepare her kids (Not just the girls) for the real full-contact brutal reality known is the the real working world.

While it's sexist, it's also a form of bullying. Bullying is generally punished in schools. Sexist remarks are also punished in the workplace. It is not "preparing kids for the real world" so much as it is "failing to respond to a situation in which a child is bullied."

> Bullying is generally punished in schools. Missing citation.

Re: To my daughter's high school programming teacher

#195

Post by philwelch »

revelation wrote: post #4

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 lev…

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.

Re: To my daughter's high school programming teacher

#196

Post by hfern »

jacalata wrote: post #75
hfern wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> While I was attending SC '12 in Salt Lake City last November, my daughter emailed to tell me that the boys in her class were harassing her. "They told me to get in the kitchen and make them sandwiches," she said. Even if you think the parent is overstepping their bounds here, I would rather a parent be too concerned as oppose to not being concerned at all. Double so that he is in the tech sector while we are facing…

She - the writer is a woman.

My mistake. I would edit it but I don't see an edit button.

Re: To my daughter's high school programming teacher

#197

Post by sologoub »

When I first read that, my blood boiled. Regardless of the tech nature of the class, it's that kind of blatant negligence that really underscores the problems of many an education system. The myriad of excuses made for the incompetent teacher are even more maddening.

If you do not hold people to a higher standard, but instead make excuses for them, their conduct will become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

An educator was once one of the most revered professions. Whether or not they earned a comfortable living, educators of all walks of life were respected and took pride in their teachings. Today... not so much and by making constant excuses, we make it worse.

I would hope the school board would be interested in why such clear harassment went unpunished/corrected.

Re: To my daughter's high school programming teacher

#198

Post by philwelch »

anigbrowl wrote: post #182
dandrews wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

while your wife watches DWTS You're part of the problem.

I guess it would be politically incorrect to point out the actual ratings demographics of DWTS are about 2/3 women?

Re: To my daughter's high school programming teacher

#199

Post by byroot »

acjohnson55 wrote: post #143

I feel for the daughter who (like many women before her) had a crappy experience in the male-dominated programming world. I feel for the parent who sees her daughter possibly reject a very fulfilling career path after a bad initial experience, when the future could be so much better. But as a former high school teacher, I also feel for the teacher. Giving them some benefit of the doubt, I just want to point out a cou…

I totally agree with your comment, one thing though

> a crappy experience in the male-dominated programming world.

It's a bit far fetched to call a high school level programing introduction class audience the "programming world". Given the amount of people that, even in totally CS oriented engineering school, give up, or aim at a management career after they discover what CS really is, I'm confident to guess that no more than 1 or 2 kids in this class will be one day professional programmers.

I don't think this story as anything to do with sexism in IT.

It's also possible (but we will never know) that she was bullied more because she was doing great in the course than because she was the only girl (which is still unacceptable of course).

Re: To my daughter's high school programming teacher

#200

Post by yeukhon »

pflats wrote: post #157
yeukhon wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It used to be C++ for AP Computer Science, no? Anyhow. It used to be C++ for my high school and just a year or two before I was a freshman (that was 2006) it became Java.

C++ was a short run, something like '99-'03. It was Pascal beforehand and Java afterwards. There's no AB course any more either. It's just one course, the equivalent of the old A.

When did the whole VB thing come to the table? Probably left over from the old days in intro to cs in undergraduate?
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