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Mike Zamansky was my AP CS teacher in high school. Way to go Mr. Zamansky! Edit: If anyone has any questions about him or his teaching style I might be able to answer.
mine as well.
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> We don't need more philosophers. Agreed but imagine how boring CS would be if people were ignorant of all of those other subjects.
> We don't need more philosophers. Disagree. There would be no computer science without philosophy (but not the other way around). > ...imagine how boring CS would be if people were ignorant of all of those other subjects. If we eliminate philosophy from our curriculum, et cetera, I poise that kids entering high school this year will be obsolete by the time they have graduated. Because CS without philosophy is really…
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Compare unemployment rates in geography, philosophy and foreign languages. We need more CS people. We don't need more philosophers. (Though admittedly, knowledge of English or German might be very useful if you are coming from Romania.)
This is the wrong way to think about education. Learning is learning, regardless of job placement, and while I recognize the need for stronger STEM education it shouldn't come at the expense of equally important topics.
As for learning you do because you enjoy it, treat it as consumption (i.e., the same way you treat an X-Box).
I went to Stuyvesant HS 10 years ago, and I took all the CS classes that the school had offered from Mr. Zamansky ("Z", as we affectionately call him), and can add some more specific information as to why this was necessary. Stuyvesant opened in the beginning of the 20th century, and there are some vestigial components that should've been amputated long ago: in addition to the standard math, science, language (Englis…
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If they learn to engineer software, surely they'll know how to access Wikipedia.
Learning how to accumulate facts is a completely different problem than learning how to think about ideas. I think teaching children how to think about things is far more important than focusing on specific skills at that age, even if they are useful skills.
Sometimes the best ideas don't come to you until you've worked and struggled with the existing tools and materials to appreciate the difference between practice and theory.
I love computers and I work with them everyday, but I believe the idea of a high school geared primarily towards software engineering is wrong. Computer Science teaches you to think logically about problems. It gives you primitives to build complex systems that will later help you understand the world. In fact, most computer scientists think the same when they approach a problem. But there are other kinds of thinking…
Both my father and my uncle went to a mathematically oriented school in Russia; however, this does not mean their education suffered. What it meant was that on top of doing normal school, they had more math taught at a faster pace.
Specializing in high school does not stop you from getting a well rounded education, but it can provide focus and ensures an exceptionally thorough grounding in whatever subject you're specializing in.
I went to Stuyvesant HS 10 years ago, and I took all the CS classes that the school had offered from Mr. Zamansky ("Z", as we affectionately call him), and can add some more specific information as to why this was necessary. Stuyvesant opened in the beginning of the 20th century, and there are some vestigial components that should've been amputated long ago: in addition to the standard math, science, language (Englis…
Stuyvesant opened in the beginning of the 20th century, and there are some vestigial components that should've been amputated long ago It's interesting to hear that Stuy requires drafting and shop. As a former NYC transplant I always thought it was more like a public prep school. My high school in rural Minnesota also required a year of shop, and drafting was one of the electives. A few of my friends from high school…
It all comes back to the difference between "requirement" and "elective". A situation where you must take a class in a field where the supply seems to be ok, but not in a field where the supply is low seems to be wrong.
I went to Stuyvesant HS 10 years ago, and I took all the CS classes that the school had offered from Mr. Zamansky ("Z", as we affectionately call him), and can add some more specific information as to why this was necessary. Stuyvesant opened in the beginning of the 20th century, and there are some vestigial components that should've been amputated long ago: in addition to the standard math, science, language (Englis…
As a Brooklyn Tech grad, we too had the shop and technical drafting requirements, though we also had a major system, which included Computer Science ( http://www.bths.edu/majordesc/CompSci.jsp ) as an option, which is technically required for graduation since it's your major. The courses offered as part of the major has changed since then, we had C++, Networking, and Computer Architecture, in addition to Java and Web…
I am actually astonished that this is the first time something like this is tried in the US. And I also don't understand the negative comments here in HN - most of you guys probably had a passion for computers at even earlier age and would have enjoyed this kind of school greatly. Here In the Sofia (the capital of Bulgaria) this is long established practice - we have loosely specialized schools and students decide wh…
I am actually astonished that this is the first time something like this is tried in the US. And I also don't understand the negative comments here in HN Specialized high schools are moderately common in the United States, some organized as general public schools, and some organized as "charter" schools (a form of regulation in the United States with public funding, but less public funding than most schools, and some…
When I was in 8th grade at the best private day school I could find that would bus me (just under an hour away, but I lived in the sticks and accepted that), I was one of the few kids in "advanced math and science." This was 1 year accelerated, nothing special: we just went to class with the 9th graders. I was taught "Math A" out of this bad boy: http://www.amazon.com/Lets-Review-Lawrence-S-Leff/dp/0764122...
In my first year of the 1.5-year-long Math A, I was never once introduced to the quadratic formula. We were taught to factor quadratic equations by guessing the roots. Not kidding. The Math A test guaranteed integer roots, so... we learned to factor quadratic equations by guessing roots. I actually wrote a TI-83+ program to solve quadratic equations by guessing the roots (somewhat intelligently).
I still look back on that in astonishment - that's all you had to know for algebra 1! Integer roots and guessing! I'm sure schools in new york state - and schools in my region - taught the quadratic formula... but by the book, they didn't have to.
Thankfully, I was fortunate enough to be able to go to high school in connecticut where I could get a decent education. So my story ended up just dandy. Not sure about the rest of NYS.