Semi-OT: Why Kids Can't use Computers

[Paul King]

I can't speak for "bad teachers", since I have really been teaching senior
math and qualified to teach both subject areas. Our school has never offered
comp sci, being too small. In my experience there is a lot of student
romanticism that precedes entry to computer science for the first time.
There are people who want to write a killer Flash app first time out, and
become dismayed when they find to their horror that it means learning
ActionScript and going through a lot of OOP concepts, and that we should
probably start with something easier to think about while covering some
basic stuff like "if" statements and looping. And maybe even a function or
two. 

Choices for a first teaching language vary wildly among teachers and
institutions. I still recommend something procedural like Turing or Lazarus,
but most teachers these days, afraid of losing students will surrender to
Visual Basic, even though the latter is costly, but can arguably be massaged
into a grade 10 teaching language (.NET is a little more iffy in Grade 10,
IMO). I dislike their choice, but I understand that this is the common
wisdom, due to pressure from administrators to keep the numbers of
interested students up in their classrooms. Just the simple fact that VB has
more cachet with students than Turing or Lazarus, even with its VB-like RAD
GUI, is enough reason to reject such teaching languages.

Python has been suggested (and is the first language taught in many
universities to those who are raw beginners), but IMO it plays too fast and
loose with data types. Since knowing data types is taught in grade 10 for
the first time, it wouldn't be a good idea to expect students to understand,
let alone trace errors, in such code. The only way to go here and stick
honestly to the Ministry objectives is to select a language that uses strict
typing. Hence, my choices from the Pascal family. Languages like C, C++, and
Python can be taught in Grade 11 or 12 once the basics are out of the way.

I guess that the real problem here is that, while there are good and bad
teachers in all subjects, computer science teaching is influenced by admin
expectations that numbers of students have to be up to a certain level each
September, student expectations that don't match the realities of the
course, and the teacher's choice of teaching language (admin pressure to
"keep numbers up" for class funding goes back to Mike Harris and the funding
formula, which still prevails).

Paul King

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-tlug-lxSQFCZeNF4 at public.gmane.org [mailto:owner-tlug-lxSQFCZeNF4 at public.gmane.org] On Behalf Of Lennart
> Sorensen
> Sent: Tuesday, August 13, 2013 1:54 PM
> To: tlug-lxSQFCZeNF4 at public.gmane.org
> Subject: Re: [TLUG]: Semi-OT: Why Kids Can't use Computers
> 
> On Mon, Aug 12, 2013 at 10:00:04PM -0400, James Knott wrote:
> > Way back when I was in grade 12, I took a Fortran class that was
> > taught by a math teacher.  It soon became apparent he didn't know
> much
> > more about it than we did.
> 
> Well some people are bad teachers.
> 
> It does seem that highschools don't generally have much luck attracting
> teachers that actually know how to teach programming.  At least I
> haven't encountered any yet.  I suspect most of those that could teach
> programming are either teaching at college or university, or actually
> programming for a living instead.
> 
> --
> Len Sorensen
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