As I was reviewing my schedule for my freshmen year of high school, I was particularly interested in what languages I was taking. Though I signed up for French and Latin, French is the only language I will apparently be able to take. Through this thinking, I thought of the fact that we really should be expanding language programming into new directions. Instead of simply teaching traditional romance languages, schools should expand teachings into the fields of computers. Instead of keeping programming and computer education in a few AP classes, programming should be given equal emphasis as foreign languages. Just like foreign languages in most schools, programming would not be required but would be recommended. In fact, the ability to program is going to become far more useful than the ability to speak a foreign language. As translation software becomes more and more robust, the ability to speak a foreign language becomes less and less useful. Meanwhile, as the presence of computers increases, the ability to communicate effectively with machines becomes more useful. I don’t mean high level programming, I mean simple programming. The ability to run through a list and change one value, the ability to modify a database, and such simple tasks are increasingly useful and even expected in many fields. In light of this, programming should be recognized as a vital part of a high school curriculum.
Sounds like a nice idea… in theory.
Nice, because it is a seemingly good idea to teach foundational and important skills to students.
I begin to question it when it comes to application for a few reasons:
Have you ever travelled to France and tried using the French you learned in school?
The language you learned in school is just that. It’s a language. Programming requires more than memorizing rules and constructs, just as communicating requires more than more than conjugating verbs and spewing out vocabulary.
Project planning, best practises, and the creative and logical art of using existing structures and functions to accomplish a new goal are skills that require practice, interest, and aptitude.
A monkey can code. Few can code well.
It is already a challenging thing to separate the sheep from the goats in the scripting world (there are just so many goats). I susect there wouldbe a negative impact on the job market, AND on the code base!
While I am in favour of making programming courses available in all schools (assuming you have qualified teachers) and introducing language constructs and other basics, I am not certain that your idea would actually work in the real world.
Certainly offering programming in high school is a great idea. As an elective. It should not be allowed to count as a traditional foreign language credit, simply because it doesn’t actually teach the same concepts. It is only a language in the way that math can be said to be a language,and though it may open up new job opportunities, it isn’t going to give them appreciation for other cultures, improve their understanding of literature, or help them travel in the physical world.
@cereal_girl: I understand the process of programing as well as any and better than many.
Are these not all skills schools are trying to give students? By learning something useful and inspiring a different brand of creativity students are killing two birds with one stone.
The purpose of these high school lessons would not be to produce fully functional programmers. They would not get a job as a programmer but would have the ability to apply programming knowledge when needed. Nobody becomes a biologist with just high school bio and nobody would become a programmer with just high school programming. But be exposing students to all the sciences, including computer science, schools give students the choice.
@Tony: Definitely an elective, just as most good courses are. As for counting as foreign language credit, I wouldn’t count it as such. Instead, it would probably be counted as a practical art elective. (My school counts electives as either a foreign language, practical art, or creative art)
As an elective, I think it’s a great thing. Of course, this means that students in smaller schools wouldn’t likely have access to such courses anyways.
I was somehow under the impression that Computer Science was already available as an elective in most larger high schools, and that this course has included programming basics for many years now??
Actually, very few high schools offer computer science as an elective. I go to a relatively large high school and the only moderately computer related courses are basics courses - you know, teach how to use MS Word. The only districts that currently offer real computer science are the really large ones which can afford hundreds of electives. I think it is ridiculous how little emphasis is placed upon technology expertise in most schools. For instance, my school offers fashion design, child psychology, architectural drawing, 4 levels of shop, experimental theater, and many other electives but no computer courses beyond the very basics.
I went to high school back in the days of Basic (blush), and every student was introduced to programming language structures in my small rural school (and many of my peers report the same experience.)
In my rural Canadian neighbourhood, many teens ARE exposed to some (albeit limited) programming basics, and in fact, often develop a love or hate of programming from that experience.
So I guess that has shaped my point of view.
There is so much to be learned in programming - there are may languages and styles of programming. Enough that anyone with a love for it can find something to fit their style I think.
My experience in suggests that a school curriculum might not do it justice. And there is certainly not time to teach enough skills to give budding coders their “sea legs” in a classroom.
That said, it certainly would be nice if the schools taught us relevant and useful skills, that helped us develop logical and creative problem solving pathways, wouldn’t it?
I ever learned any of that stuff in school. Real geeks are grown at home, I guess.
I guess Canadian schools must be very different in terms of emphasis upon programming… most U.S. schools never even dream of including it in the curriculum. Perhaps it would be interesting to find a research study upon the effect if introducing programming in schools? Perhaps a comparison of number of students who go into computer science after getting high school programming lessons and the number of students who go into computer science where high school programming was not introduced.
Again, I would like to stress that the use of this is not realy to build “real geeks” or even coders - rather to give students the tools they need in a digital world. In my opinion, everyone should know HTML, PHP, and JavaScript. These are three extremely simple languages, yet they are integral in this world of communication via the web. Many small to medium businesses can not afford to build complex GUIs for products, but still require employees to function in it. Also, basic programming skills can be an incredible time saver.
To sum it up, I think the point of high school programming would be to give students the programming experience to help them in fields other than computer science as well as to inspire students to investigate the field of computer science outside of high school. It would still be expected that those serious about programming would do a lot of research on their own as well as pursue a degree in computer science.
Nah- i wouldn’t go so far as to say that there’s an emphasis on programming up here. There are, however, usually introductory programming-centric electives available to the best of my knowledge.
And there should be. There’s really no reason for people to be intimidated by simple coding and to avoid it because it’s “too hard”
It would indeed be interesting to do the studies and see which courses are offered in which geographical areas, and to see what impact that has had on it’s students.
I know that Girl Guides are currently doing a survey of women in IT on just that subject - exposure and opportunities in technical fields at young ages, and how that seems to affect career choices and confidence levels.
Whether it is offered by your school or not, I would encourage yout o continue developing your skills. Seems pretty much essential these days!
Yes, the results of the study will be most interesting.
As for developing my skills outside of school, I have settled into the fact. In any local class it is pretty much guarunteed I know more about (web) programming than the instructor. After all, I have worked on a variety of projects (with many more in the works) and founded a web software/design company. Actually, I am volunteering teaching services to local organizations… as many programmers happily do.
I couldn’t understand some parts of this article amming Programs at Newly Ancient, but I guess I just need to check some more resources regarding this, because it sounds interesting.