Programming Education Making A Comeback In Primary Schools 138
New submitter kyrsjo (2420192) writes "The Economist has an article on how information technology — the real stuff, not just button-pushing — is making its way back to schools across the world. As the article argues: 'Digital technology is now so ubiquitous that many think a rounded education requires a grounding in this subject just as much as in biology, chemistry or physics.' In today's society, teaching computer science in schools is absolutely necessary, and that means getting a real understanding of computers and how they work. That requires working with algorithms and programming, not just learning which buttons to push in the program that the school happened to use."
Games may be a good motivator .... (Score:4, Interesting)
I know a *lot* of kids in primary through middle school are really into playing Minecraft. Several schools in the area have started experimenting with not only teaching fundamentals of coding using Minecraft, but also using it to teach other subjects like math or physics.
It reminds me a bit of when I was in school in the 80's, how the LOGO programming language was often used as an intro to programming. You're not going to go out and develop a useful piece of software just from learning how to code in LOGO, just as learning to do custom mods in the world of Minecraft has limited utility elsewhere. But the concepts and basic skills translate.
Re:Just don't make programming classes mandatory (Score:4, Interesting)
By all means, offer programming classes, but don't require people to take them to graduate. Attempting to learn programming if your mind doesn't work the right way (detail oriented, highly logical) would be torture indeed. Understanding how to use them should be sufficient for most people.
Yuck. More "programming requires a special mind" nonsense.
The cold hard truth is that programming is incredibly easy. Why, it's so easy that children can and do teach themselves. Remember the 80's? You couldn't through a rock without hitting a kid who wrote their own simple games for their micro.
Yes, anyone without a significant cognitive impairment can learn to write computer programs. That particular skill does not, in any way, make you special and unique. You're going to need to find something else to maintain your fragile ego.