(08-20-2013 10:08 AM)LSU04_08 Wrote:  How many jobs are out there where you have to major in math compared to computer science?

"School boards fight to keep CS out of schools, since every minute spent on CS is one less minute spent on core subjects like English and math. The students’ test scores in these core subjects determine next year’s funding, so CS is a threat."

As far as English goes, it's easy to see that millions of Americans can neither write, nor speak it properly. The school boards have it all backwards. Thanks America.

can I ax you a question? I've axed other people but they didn't know the answer.

(08-20-2013 01:18 PM)bevotex Wrote:  

(08-20-2013 10:08 AM)LSU04_08 Wrote:  How many jobs are out there where you have to major in math compared to computer science?

"School boards fight to keep CS out of schools, since every minute spent on CS is one less minute spent on core subjects like English and math. The students’ test scores in these core subjects determine next year’s funding, so CS is a threat."

As far as English goes, it's easy to see that millions of Americans can neither write, nor speak it properly. The school boards have it all backwards. Thanks America.

can I ax you a question? I've axed other people but they didn't know the answer.

Yeh go ahed on an axe me. Jus rember all thes yunger people came up n tha texin error an don proofread wut they right. Also caint speak it fo crap. I wil try mi bes 2 anser.

Said thing is, I'm not confident that isn't what it sounds like when you speak.

I can vouch for this!!!

They did teach us typing in early middle school on wonderful IBM ALPS keyboards. With boxes to go over your hands and the keyboard so you couldn't peek. That was good.

It was all downhill from there.

At USC-East, you are taught object oriented programming in Java. You have an option to learn COBOL as well, because they need to train their own future employees as the enrollment system still runs on a COBOL mainframe. I **** you not. There is no real modern UNIX in the curriculum. The Operating Systems class is typically taught on Solaris. There is an alarming amount of CSE bleed over. At USC Upstate they are somewhat better, as the security and operating systems class focus on Linux. But their lab Linux versions are impossibly old. Like RHEL 4. System administration is never taught. Network administration is never taught. Automation is never taught. Modern programming languages like python, perl, go, and even relevant older languages like C and C++ are never taught. UNIX fundamentals and command line are never taught. Advanced security auditing is never taught. Frameworks are never taught. Code auditing is never taught. VERSION CONTROL IS NEVER TAUGHT ... that is an unforgivable sin in modern programming. If you are going into IT, you need to accept that real world skills you'll have to teach yourself and that that process never ends as you have to keep up with technology as it constantly progresses.

(08-20-2013 04:04 PM)georgia_tech_swagger Wrote:  If you are going into IT, you need to accept that real world skills you'll have to teach yourself and that that process never ends as you have to keep up with technology as it constantly progresses.

This was about elementary and 2ndary education, but ok.

Anyway, this final line indicates the challenges that universities have in keeping together a curriculum that is current.

It may be that CS just doesn't fit into the university paradigm, and shouldn't be there.

Schools should provide opportunities for the talented students to go beyond normal course work if they are willing to do the work. I'm not talking about AP courses in the 12th grade but singling out the gifted for advanced math and science courses starting in 3rd grade.

These programs are usually the first to fall to the budget axe.

If students could stop wasting time on diversity training and improving their self-esteem, we may be able to teach English, math, and cs.

(08-20-2013 07:26 PM)UConn-SMU Wrote:  If students could stop wasting time on diversity training and improving their self-esteem, we may be able to teach English, math, and cs.

But if we did that, the diversity and self-esteem instructors would lose their jobs.

Kids should start learning life skills as early as possible. Do you know they teach sign language to kids as soon as they start to speak now? i didn't and it blew my mind when my friends two year old started signing as she spoke. 2 y.o. = sign language, 7 y.o. = computer science. Makes sense to me.

(08-20-2013 09:05 AM)DrTorch Wrote:  Especially when compared to other countries

http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/#post-72001

Quote:Is seven years old too early to start teaching computer science? Vietnam doesn’t think so.

Google software engineer Neil Fraser visited a school in Vietnam where computer science classes begin in the second grade and continue right up to graduation. By fourth grade, students were already writing programs using loops, and by “grade 5 they are writing procedures containing loops calling procedures containing loops,” he says. By eleventh grade they regularly handle problems, he says, that are as difficult as the ones Google uses to test job applicants in interviews.

Meanwhile, juniors and seniors at San Francisco’s magnet school for science and technology struggle with subjects the Vietnamese students had already mastered in fourth and fifth grade.

Mississippi actually had something like this on the books planned (back when I was considering becoming a teacher, and honestly, this was the only reason I was considering it.). Basically it was 4th grade, you started with basic (not BASIC) programming courses, and worked your way up various languages in different grades.

I don't remember why it got shot down, I think it had something to do with they were going to bypass the Education degree requirements and you only needed "alternate teaching certification" (you could have a computer science degree or X number of years in the industry) and the NEA and US DoE had cows about it.