11–20 of 49 posts
Just my 2c but this is one of the worst ideas. First, this was designed by politicians who I am sure everyone on this sub would hate (basically, the Brexit boys). The stated aim was to be more elitist: make subjects much harder, encourage smart children...and dumb children...well...sorry, if you are dumb when we test you at 11 then you will be digging ditches. Second, the logic for this came from people who had never…
Shriram Krishnamurthi of Brown University already accomplished this and gave a great talk about the problems of creating a new course, when you can just shove it into the existing math classes without needing to hire thousands of specialist teachers or worry about yet another mandatory class where schools reduce the rigor, or worry about students not even being able to take the class because they are in remedial clas…
Ah the take over by the Maths department - just what we need
He knew nothing about programming except that he thought it was cool, and often taught us a lot of incorrect information. Being a jackass 18-year-old, I corrected him on all of this. I got 100% on every lab, assignment, and exam... and got a B in the class ("participation!").
It was about this time that I realized college might not be the thing for me.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ah the take over by the Maths department - just what we need
I was required to take CS107 in school, you couldn't test out of it. It was taught by a chemistry professor. He knew nothing about programming except that he thought it was cool, and often taught us a lot of incorrect information. Being a jackass 18-year-old, I corrected him on all of this. I got 100% on every lab, assignment, and exam... and got a B in the class ("participation!"). It was about this time that I real…
Frequently, there are higher caliber instructors in colleges than high schools. If your goal is to learn something you don't know, you may have made the wrong choice.
Just my 2c but this is one of the worst ideas. First, this was designed by politicians who I am sure everyone on this sub would hate (basically, the Brexit boys). The stated aim was to be more elitist: make subjects much harder, encourage smart children...and dumb children...well...sorry, if you are dumb when we test you at 11 then you will be digging ditches. Second, the logic for this came from people who had never…
This isn't fair. Academics usually have a true love of their subject and desire to teach that to the next generation.
>Third, try explaining programming without computers to a child. There are so many abstract concepts...it is just insane.
They teach many abstract concepts. The current curricula for many subjects are already full of abstract ideas that we expect children to learn. Programming is basically functions, logic and basic algebra. It's not remotely difficult to teach these to children.
>Fourth, this feeds into the aspect of British culture that reveres irrelevant knowledge (and despises practice). Nowhere is this more evident that in CS departments. Example: the UK has great CS depts but no innovation within business. The university local to me has a top ML department, they have been doing speech recognition since the 60s...all the PHds leave, there is only one speech recognition startup in the city...and that is govt-funded afaik. Taking advice from people like the OP is suicidal.
I think this is wrong. Developing strong theoretical understanding is not pointless. You can't have innovation without theory. I agree that maybe the country needs to apply that academic kowledge better to money making endeavours, but I don't believe that keeping the education system as it is now is going to help. We need more numerate people with detailed knowledge of scientific disciplines in order to drive innovation.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I was required to take CS107 in school, you couldn't test out of it. It was taught by a chemistry professor. He knew nothing about programming except that he thought it was cool, and often taught us a lot of incorrect information. Being a jackass 18-year-old, I corrected him on all of this. I got 100% on every lab, assignment, and exam... and got a B in the class ("participation!"). It was about this time that I real…
> It was about this time that I realized college might not be the thing for me. Frequently, there are higher caliber instructors in colleges than high schools. If your goal is to learn something you don't know, you may have made the wrong choice.
I will also say that I went to a good high school (IMSA) and a mediocre university (UIC). High school prepared me to be very bored in college. I had already taken calculus through "multi-variable calculus", number theory, 4 years of Japanese (including living for a year in Japan), physics, organic chemistry, learned 4 programming languages, wrote a tiny OS, etc. Most of college was just rehashing all this again, and then in your fourth year you get to learn new stuff. I wasn't willing to be bored for 3 years so that I could spend one year learning new things, so just quit. It helped that I found a security vulnerability in the school's registration system as part of that MCS494 class (100% sanctioned by the professor) and they decided that was a violating of their computer use agreement, so I was no longer allowed to use any computer systems, including the registration system. I am sure I could have fought it, but I decided it was a waste of time and got a job instead.
15 years later... I wrote a book, I've taught classes, I worked at Google for 6 years... so I am not sure I missed out on much. I would never tell anyone else not to pursue higher education, but it wasn't my thing. If I'm interested in something, I can spend a week teaching it to myself. Not everyone is like that, so college is great for them.
Just my 2c but this is one of the worst ideas. First, this was designed by politicians who I am sure everyone on this sub would hate (basically, the Brexit boys). The stated aim was to be more elitist: make subjects much harder, encourage smart children...and dumb children...well...sorry, if you are dumb when we test you at 11 then you will be digging ditches. Second, the logic for this came from people who had never…
It smacks of transplanting a rose-tinted view of 1950s academia into schools.
Teaching students in a modern school environment is a world apart from academia.
Also, entirely predictable down-voting, I imagine from engineers who have no experience of teaching.
Just my 2c but this is one of the worst ideas. First, this was designed by politicians who I am sure everyone on this sub would hate (basically, the Brexit boys). The stated aim was to be more elitist: make subjects much harder, encourage smart children...and dumb children...well...sorry, if you are dumb when we test you at 11 then you will be digging ditches. Second, the logic for this came from people who had never…
> I understand why an academic thinks this is a good idea. More jobs for the boys. This isn't fair. Academics usually have a true love of their subject and desire to teach that to the next generation. >Third, try explaining programming without computers to a child. There are so many abstract concepts...it is just insane. They teach many abstract concepts. The current curricula for many subjects are already full of ab…
The relevant slide states about programming (and computers and tech):
- Crucial, motivating, and "ground truth".
- But also seductive, distracting, and risks excessive focus on technology details
SPJ is also not talking about "irrelevant knowledge without practice". I won't reiterate all his points, because that's what the lecture is for, but he stresses the practical parts as well as the theoretical parts, and he never claims CS should be taught "without practice".