It's obvious that they either A) didn't read the letter or B) had no clue what JGC was talking about.
UK government response to my letter about programming in schools
21–30 of 89 posts
Re: UK government response to my letter about programming in schools
#22While I'm aware this may get downvoted to the depths, I feel I have to say it. Why should kids be taught programming instead of reading, writing, language and maths? If the curriculum was changed to include programming, it would almost certainly reduce the funding and time put into other, more important subjects. While a good understanding of computers will help with almost any job in the future, unless you're going…
>Why should kids be taught programming instead of reading, writing, language and maths? //
>adding an extra topic that will only be useful to a small number of people would be wasteful. //
Just as a comparison. In Wales, Welsh language is taught throughout school and in every lesson. Yet English language is understood and used by nearly everyone in Wales and Welsh language is used by less than 20% of people. In addition Wales is the only country where it has any significant use. Welsh language is taught as the most important subject.
Clearly UK curricula don't look at utility or life application as the most important aspects of subjects taught.
Yes, it's a bit of a bête noire for me.
>how much better do you think they would be able to do their job if they knew how to program //
A little? How much better can they do their job if they know how to do algebra, or order a sandwich in France?
I'm not sure I agree with jgrahamc but I'm not sure I'm with you either ...
Re: UK government response to my letter about programming in schools
#23While I'm aware this may get downvoted to the depths, I feel I have to say it. Why should kids be taught programming instead of reading, writing, language and maths? If the curriculum was changed to include programming, it would almost certainly reduce the funding and time put into other, more important subjects. While a good understanding of computers will help with almost any job in the future, unless you're going…
> If you took a random person you passed on a busy London street at lunch time, how much better do you think they would be able to do their job if they knew how to program?
How many would benefit from learning more physics, microbiology, or reading more Shakspeare? I would say it is about the same.
For example a specific example from the article is Excel. I might not like and would never use it personally but it is useful to teach it to kids. They can just use it to track their personal finances to start with. A lot of businesses use it. Knowing how to automate things in can be a great timesaver. Heck, just knowing that it is possible to automate things in it using scripting would be good to know.
There is game programming, and that can be used to attract kids to go and study programming in depth. I think we would benefit as a society from kids wanting to go into CS more than wanting to go into Communications or English majors. Then there is the whole web aspect of it.
Then just basic literacy of using the web & the privacy implications are very important to know. Network privacy and security is one of those things along law, personal finance & propaganda techniques that should be taught first and foremost in schools because those are probably going to be important in anyone's lives -- more so than ancient history or even learning Visual Basic programming. But it seems important & practical subjects like that are excluded from our (American) education system, not sure about the British one...
Re: UK government response to my letter about programming in schools
#24"Therefore, we do not endorse, fund or promote specific resources or activities for use in schools."
Holy crap, nobody else agrees with this? This is a government entity refusing to grasp more control than it should have! They are actively saying that they trust their school system to improve itself organically, and they aren't not going to slow it down by mandating the tools used.
Had he left it at 'We need to promote computer understanding, not just usage', they might have bit on that and considered it as part of their mission. But instead, the mention of the Raspberry Pi made it sound like a sales call, and they don't do that. They aren't going to mandate or even recommend individual tools.
Re: UK government response to my letter about programming in schools
#25I'm not sure why this was posted here. Based on the response, you're knocking on the wrong door? However, the role of this Department is limited to setting the policy framework of the National Curriculum of what is taught in terms of content, attainment targets and how performance is assessed and reported. Therefore, we do not endorse, fund or promote specific resources or activities for use in schools.
Because teaching programming is a broad policy decision. It's exactly the sort of thing the particular department would be in charge of. If JGC had merely been suggesting a certain programming language or teaching software, then the response would have been appropriate. As it is, it sounds like they didn't understand what JGC wrote.
"Be it with Raspberry Pi computers in schools, or with some other hardware, we need to get back on top."
Rasberry Pi was just a suggestion. The broader idea of "teaching programming" was ignored.
Re: UK government response to my letter about programming in schools
#26While I'm aware this may get downvoted to the depths, I feel I have to say it. Why should kids be taught programming instead of reading, writing, language and maths? If the curriculum was changed to include programming, it would almost certainly reduce the funding and time put into other, more important subjects. While a good understanding of computers will help with almost any job in the future, unless you're going…
Honestly, school time is not that scarce. An adult can learn to read and write in a couple of days of intensive practice. Maths can take longer, but have the same issues as programming - how many cruise directors use more than arithmetic?
Learning programming can be easily misconstrued. Lets call it logic, algorithms and applied maths. Now is it a good idea? Sure, and its something a hypothetical cruise director could actually use.
Re: UK government response to my letter about programming in schools
#27[deleted]
Re: UK government response to my letter about programming in schools
#28This letter received in response really doesn't mean anything, it's just a generic "thank you for contacting us" letter. You'll (usually, 99 times out of 100) get a similar equivilent if you ever contact your MP, although in those cases it will generally be even less involved in the subject, along the lines of "Dear name, I agree that this matter is important and that is why I support this matter, yours, MP"
It shouldn't be taken as an indication of how well the government is handling this issue, just that it was treated as "yet another thing for someone unimportant to reply to". (That's not to say that they are treating it well... just that it can't be judged from this letter.)
Re: UK government response to my letter about programming in schools
#29While I'm aware this may get downvoted to the depths, I feel I have to say it. Why should kids be taught programming instead of reading, writing, language and maths? If the curriculum was changed to include programming, it would almost certainly reduce the funding and time put into other, more important subjects. While a good understanding of computers will help with almost any job in the future, unless you're going…
> Why should kids be taught programming instead of reading, writing, language and maths? // > adding an extra topic that will only be useful to a small number of people would be wasteful. // Just as a comparison. In Wales, Welsh language is taught throughout school and in every lesson. Yet English language is understood and used by nearly everyone in Wales and Welsh language is used by less than 20% of people. In add…
Yes, Welsh is pretty much useless, but we're talking about introducing a new subject.
Maths is useful in a lot more situations than programming would be, I bet most people don't realize how often they use maths without realizing. Things like algebra are about logic, deducing things, figuring things out. French is, again, a subject that can be dropped at 16 and not a core subject. I didn't study French at school (Technically I should have done Spanish but that was the same time I had my SLS instead)
Re: UK government response to my letter about programming in schools
#30While I'm aware this may get downvoted to the depths, I feel I have to say it. Why should kids be taught programming instead of reading, writing, language and maths? If the curriculum was changed to include programming, it would almost certainly reduce the funding and time put into other, more important subjects. While a good understanding of computers will help with almost any job in the future, unless you're going…
My view is that the average Londoner would benefit more from having been taught the basics of programming at a young age than where to find the font choices in Word.
> My view is that the average Londoner would benefit more from having been taught the basics of programming at a young age than where to find the font choices in Word.
Yes, but what are the odds that a school that teaches where to find the font choices in Word as part of an English class wouldn't find something similarly bad to teach as "programming basics"?
Small tweaks don't make big changes. Instead, they just give said organization more opportunities to demonstrate its essential nature.