you are doing it entirely wrong, as they aren't necessarily being interested in computer programming, just the high level problem solving game-ish things.

So you actually mean that they are doing it right?

Programming is a means to an end - it has no greater purpose than to enable high-level problem solving.

This! I am a problem solver who happens to use a keyboard and compiler on occasion.

Honestly, I don't know. But then, wouldn't that be the same argument for any subject area? What if instead of BASIC or LOGO you instead had equivalent exposure to music theory and music composing?

You do. Or at least, learning to play an instrument was mandatory for me in my typical government primary school (it's even a meme for it). In secondary school it was mandatory to learn to read and write musical compositions too...

Also mandatory were writing stories, painting pictures, doing math, playing sport, performing plays, singing, researching in the library, constructing scientific experiments, speaking another language, history, commerce, geography, and biology -- all at a very basic level, with further study being optional -- despite the fact that most of us suck at all of these things now. It's called a "well rounded education".

Does the US not cover all these bases already?

The same in Hungary. The sad truth that the current government wants to destroy our relatively good education (pretty much the only thing that Hungary has), but trends show that this well rounded education (all that you listed) is getting put in some 2-4 classes (45 min each) in a week. The government seems to do everything to make the people immobilized.

Getting kids to learn programming earlier definitely seems like a good idea to me. We could start by replacing cursive with keyboarding in elementary schools.

We could start by replacing cursive with keyboarding in elementary schools.

And then you raise a generation of people who can't write - seriously, I run into college kids all the time who can't write cursive. You ask them to write an in-class essay for their final exam, and they laboriously print pages of block capitals.

I'm not a fan of taking anything out of the curriculum (it is far too limited already), but you are talking about removing one of the foundational skills of a developed society...

And then you raise a generation of people who can't write - seriously, I run into college kids all the time who can't write cursive. You ask them to write an in-class essay for their final exam, and they laboriously print pages of block capitals.

Writing in cursive is not a "foundational skill of a developed society," it is an obsolete way of putting letters on a page. What's the point of knowing cursive in this day and age? The only advantage to knowing cursive is being able to write faster, and I can type a lot faster than anyone I know can either print or cursive. I can't write cursive and can only just barely read it, but neither do I need to. Cursive was something I "learned" in 4th grade and then never needed again. I can print just fine and printing is clearer and easier to read, anyway.

Also, I think your experience is out of norm - not writing cursive doesn't imply writing with block capitals. I print in both upper and lower case and so does almost everyone else I know.

We could start by replacing cursive with keyboarding in elementary schools.

And then you raise a generation of people who can't write - seriously, I run into college kids all the time who can't write cursive. You ask them to write an in-class essay for their final exam, and they laboriously print pages of block capitals.

I'm not a fan of taking anything out of the curriculum (it is far too limited already), but you are talking about removing one of the foundational skills of a developed society...

In 20 years, hand-writing final exam essays will be a thing of the past. I'm surprised we still do. I'm also surprised you encounter college kids who can write cursive at all since nobody I know writes cursive.

Getting kids to learn programming earlier definitely seems like a good idea to me. We could start by replacing cursive with keyboarding in elementary schools.

I guess the difference is probably separating here whether the target is kids or college-aged people.

if it is kids, then this is probably good, they might actually learn something, and find it a better experience than, say, "hey, go here and memorize this big table of random crap" (like list all states, their capital, and their major cities in terms of population, ...). like, people don't need to memorize this stuff, most likely they will encounter it via exposure, and remember it if it is actually relevant.

for college age students though, I am more pessimistic. it all generally comes off more as a way for the colleges to basically squeeze money out of people and give them a lot of busywork in the process. most of the people who go and get a CS degree still not really knowing how to write code, and most who can had probably learned it on their own anyways. and, also, the whole education thing is pretty good at taking whatever topic, and finding ways to make it suck...

like, most of what I know, I learned myself...

but, then again, probably I am not really the type of person the education system (or society) wants to produce (probably its own drawback in a way, like it is a negative status WRT things like employability, ...).


then again, maybe I have just been "lucky", in that the internet has been around pretty much my whole life.

actually, I probably owe a lot more to Carmack, since to a large degree I pretty much ended up learning programming largely initially by fiddling around with his code.


or such...

We could start by replacing cursive with keyboarding in elementary schools.

And then you raise a generation of people who can't write - seriously, I run into college kids all the time who can't write cursive. You ask them to write an in-class essay for their final exam, and they laboriously print pages of block capitals.

I'm not a fan of taking anything out of the curriculum (it is far too limited already), but you are talking about removing one of the foundational skills of a developed society...

In 20 years, hand-writing final exam essays will be a thing of the past. I'm surprised we still do. I'm also surprised you encounter college kids who can write cursive at all since nobody I know writes cursive.

yeah. as-is, cursive is more one of those things whose role is mostly relegated to signing things...

can a person read it? not really.
can a person write it? not really.
block print is much easier to read and write.

Also, I think your experience is out of norm - not writing cursive doesn't imply writing with block capitals. I print in both upper and lower case and so does almost everyone else I know.

Can you print your upper and lower case as fast as I can write cursive? I'd be very surprised - and I'm not very quick, compared to those skilled in cursive.

In 20 years, hand-writing final exam essays will be a thing of the past. I'm surprised we still do.

What planet do you live on? Quite a number of my classmates didn't own their own computers, and that was at a fairly expensive private university.

When you factor in all the poor/rural/disadvantaged school systems, there is a very large body of students (~30%) who don't have a computer, even in the US.

can a person read it? not really.

I'm talking about clear, legible cursive, not chicken-scratch - the type of cursive that requires a solid foundation in primary school, and continual reinforcement throughout secondary education.

Olof Hedman, on 01 Mar 2013 - 16:42, said:
With the car analogy, It's really helpful for your driving if you have at least a basic knowledge of how a car works, and some basic physics.
Same thing with computers, the most versatile tool ever invented, that everyone uses.

Not really. If you have to know how a product works internally to be able to successfully operate it, then there has been a failure in product design and it will not be successful to the mass market. Consumer products need to be black boxes for the vast majority of people using them. None of the non-programmers I know would benefit in any way from knowing the basics of how to write code as far as general computer use goes.

It's still very helpful to have some knowledge of how it actually works, even though you don't need the low level mechanics view (still largely a black box), to be able to know its potential, and being able to operate it safely and doing basic maintenance.

For both the car, and the computer.

I think some basic understanding of what a program is, what its role is in the computer, and the basic building blocks that make a computer, and some basic networking (really basic) should be common knowledge, much more then it is.

And I think simple programming exercises in a very high level programming language would be an excellent way to teach it.

Couple it with some tinkering with making leds blink with a rasberry pi or arduino.

Even young children can do that with some guidance.

And yeah, some of them will get intrigued enough to take it to the next level and actually become a programmer or at least an engineer