dwc@hou2b.UUCP (D.CHEN) (01/03/85)
>...... In any case, I feel kids should be taught to >program whether or not they will use it, because it is good training >for their minds. this is exactly the point of view that i am criticizing. should chess be made part of the high school curriculum because it is good training for the minds? i think that most people will say no. it is rather self-centered to think that the type of training you have received has made your mind BETTER (techno-centric). i'm no cognitive scientist, but i don't think that the human problem solving processes resembles the way we currently program (hence the term semantic gap). in fact, the availability of computers can also be a crutch for the mind (both young and old). in one of my classes, we were given an assignment that required integration to find moments of inertia of cylinders. one student asked if he could solve the problem numerically on a computer. this is a graduate student in computer science who obviously must have had training in calculus. but the first thing he thought of was to call upon his programming training rather than his mathematical training. the sad fact is that we will all be guilty of this at some point. how many of us do an analysis of the complexity of the algorithms that we base our programs on before we write the programs? how many of us are depending on technology rather than our minds to solve problems quickly? how many of us are debating whether to force this crutch onto high school students? i'm overstating my case but i think that if problem solving and making abstractions are the skills you want to teach then put more emphasis on mathematics. >... Daily life requires only the most rudimentary literacy; >look at how many illiterate people survive undetected. do you mean to say that if they were detected they wouldn't survive? it sounds like open season on illiterate people! kidding aside, literacy is not some great goal for the development of the human soul or mind. it is really a safeguard for society since that is how our cumulative knowledge survives. for an individual however, if a person has the "rudimentary literacy needed to survive" why judge them any further? to re-emphasize the point of my original article, high school in this country is meant to provide the minimal education for participation in our great society. in practice, many high schools are certification factories for people who want to get jobs that require high school diplomas. that is why there are those who are marginally literate and who do not know simple arithmetic. in this environment, i think that a requirement for computer literacy will only take away from the drive for english literacy and arithmetic skills. and though i think that many more people will be USING computers in the future, not every person will have to program them (e.g. difference between knowing how to drive a car and knowing how the electrical system in a car works). danny chen ihnp4!hou2b!dwc
draves@harvard.ARPA (Richard Draves) (01/04/85)
> > >...... In any case, I feel kids should be taught to > >program whether or not they will use it, because it is good training > >for their minds. > > this is exactly the point of view that i am criticizing. should > chess be made part of the high school curriculum because it is > good training for the minds? i think that most people will say > no. it is rather self-centered to think that the type of training > you have received has made your mind BETTER (techno-centric). i'm > no cognitive scientist, but i don't think that the human problem > solving processes resembles the way we currently program (hence the > term semantic gap). > I believe writing good programs and writing good proofs involve much the same skills. I would favor the inclusion of programming because it gives the student a more tangible result, a running program. I think a student is more likely to work on a game program than some abstract algebra proof. Rich
sean@ukma.UUCP (Sean Casey) (01/07/85)
I feel that high schools, while doing well in teaching kids facts, are doing little in teaching kids how to learn. The problems in this world are getting more complex; the advantage is going to go to the people who can attack them by coming up with new ideas, not just iterating old ones. It is for this reason I feel that computer science is an excellent choice for a high school curriculum. The problems presented are of such a variety and nature as to cause the student to create new relationships in his mind. This is similer to solving mathematic and geometrical proofs; the student must make new mental connections to solve them. It is this process--the student learning to connect things mentally--that teaches the student to think. Why not chess? Chess presents too high a level of abstraction for learning purposes. The problems presented by a chess game do not apply to real world. In contrast, most computer courses use real world examples to teach programming. A student can easily relate an algorithm with what happens in real life. Sean Casey UK Dept. of Mathematical Sciences