Re: Computer Education in Public Schools

[oakbox]

Computer Science is too specific for grade school, and having these things crammed down your throat turns you off to it. I do wish that I had been taught LOGIC somewhere in grade school. You get a little bit of it in Geometry, but a few years ago (I'm 31) that wasn't even an option until you were in High School.

I had a great foundation for programming even though my degree is in Electronic Engineering. EE got up close and personal with AND, OR, and NOT gates in digital circuitry. This was also where you learned good troubleshooting skills :)

To me, the biggest hole in the US education system is that you are never taught how to learn, you are expected to pick it up by osmosis. Study techniques, how to restructure information into a format that YOU can absorb (some people are visual, some verbal). When you learn how to learn, everything else is a piece of cake.

oakbox

[charnos]

Probably the worst part about the truth to your statement is the grade school courses which seek to teach you study skills. For the most part, they (at least in my high school) were taught by remedial teachers, and just people who hadn't a clue what was going on half of the time. Not to downplay the importance of remedial teachers, but a course on how to study should NOT be limited in scope to those students are having trouble in high school. Rather, there should be also a course to help those students who are doing well in high school, but only thus far through osmosis. The problem is quite a catch 22: if a student actually need to study very hard for high school, then they might not have the aptitude to do well at a higher level university; if they breezed through high school on aptitude alone (like myself), they find themselves in a rough spot when the arrive at a university, as they have little or no study skills. If college-bound would have to go through a mandatory class teaching time management and study skills, but in a collegiate context, perhaps they wouldn't have such a hard time adjusting the first couple semesters.

[Jenda]

I think a lot of that "breezed through hight school to find themselves in a rough spot" problem is caused by the "same" hi-school education for all system in US. At the time the kids get to high school there are simply too big differences between them. Therefore the slow ones will be tooooooo slow and the bright ones will be bored.

IMHO at about 14, 15 it's the highest time to separate them out. So that they end up with others at about the same level. With others that they can (and have to) compete with.

Suppose you were preparing for some town-level athletic competition. Will you improve if you will practise with a world champion? I guess not. He'll be too god for you. Will you improve if your practise with someone whos fat and slow? No way, you don't have to push yourself to be quicker.

Jenda

P.S.: Here (Czech Republic) the system was such that the first 8 years we were all in the same schools and then we dispersed into several totaly different types of schools.

(If some sentences do not make sense it's beause of my english. When I'm try to speak about something nontechnical I hit the limits.)

[charnos]

I agree wholeheartedly. The only other country with a different grade school model that I know enough (still little) to comment about is Germany's, and ever since taking a course in German language and culture in 8th grade, I'd envied how their school system diverged depending on your abilities, which sounds much like the Czech Republic's.


...well, that and the free Uni :)