[Chicago] Python in local school systems?

[Michael Tobis]

On 1/31/07, Ted Pollari <tcp at uchicago.edu> wrote:
>
>
> On Jan 31, 2007, at 4:15 PM, Michael Tobis wrote:
>
> I don't see why IT momentum should have anything to do with teaching
> logical thinking to people who probably aren't going to be professional
> programmers. Pretty UIs are not computer literacy any more than Excel
> spreadsheets are.
>
>
> I think you've got a high bar for computer literacy here -- understanding
> of excel spreadsheets is much more germane  to most people's interactions
> with computers than is programming in python.
>

We don't teach algebra because we expect kids to be group theorists either,
nor grammar so that they will write great novels. Computer science is not
about computers!

It is as if the printing press were newly invented and people were arguing
about which level of education we should teach "pencil theory" and which
kind of superfancy pencil we should be using.

There was a time that most people who drove cars needed to know quite a bit
> about how they worked so as to get themselves out of having to sit bit the
> roadside as breakdowns were more frequent. Now, trouble shooting fuel
> injection problems or other engine operations is a specialized skill not at
> all required of the majority of people who use cars even for their
> livelihood.
>
> My point is that "computer literacy" no longer means "programming
> literacy" or even "command line literacy" just like "programming literacy"
> no longer necessarily implies "assembly literacy" or even "C literacy".
> And, moreover, there's nothing wrong with that -- far from it in fact, if
> you think about it from a design perspective, IMHO.
>

I think the expression was chosen deliberately by analogy to "literacy". You
do not need to know any grammar to watch television, either.

The whole question about whether the purpose of education is job training
comes up here. I personally think everyone who is capable of it ought to get
to go to college without incurring a huge debt. I absolutely don't buy that
they will as a consequence get "better jobs". There may not be that many
college level jobs to go around. But they will be better citizens, better
able to design and manage their world.

The question is whether Python belongs in the schools. If you think the
purpose of schools is vocational, then no. I was presuming that the purpose
of schools was actually, um, educational.


> A slight casting of Dean's point would be that teaching a 'CS course' in
> high school often means "computer literacy" and not "programming literacy"
> and that the majority of the people in high school 'CS' courses aren't going
> to be interested in "programming literacy" unless it's done in a flashy way
> that keeps their attention by yielding visible results quickly.
>

I see no reason that Python can't fulfill that. I think the schools should
strive for pedagogical content that actually develops people's ability to
think.


Overall, this is the epitome of high school, if not human nature, IMHO.
>

I went to high school in a different country.

Sure, I appreciate the year and a half of logic coursework I did in college
> and I do think it helped me, but I don't expect everyone to want to or need
> to go down that course for the world to be a happy place.
>

I'm just a foreigner, but it seems to me that this violates the "eternal
vigilance" clause  of the canon. How can a citizenry that doesn't think
clearly manage a democracy?

Skills are transient. Develop intelligence and you can acquire skills as
> needed.
>
>
> You can teach skills much more readily than you can teach intelligence.
> There's a time and a place for both and given the ever increasing ubiquity
> of computers, basic skills are essential, just as driving is an essential
> skill for a good majority of Americans.  You shouldn't need to understand
> how to build a car to drive one and you shouldn't need to understand how to
> program a computer to use one, no matter how valuable and abstractable or
> extendable the former is.
>

Now this is a silly, though it seems quite pervasive.

I taught two hours of Python to a computer club in an inner city school once
to about a dozen kids. Every one of the kids knew their way around a file
system better than most adults do. There was no digital divide as far as I
could tell. They already know how to "drive" the mouse. They just don't know
where to go.

Moreover, if the above were true, university communities would be much
> different places, but that's a whole different line of discussion...
>

OK, maybe I (and the rest of the edu-sig) should give up. But Guido is
interested, and so is Alan Kay, and so is Mark Shuttleworth.

Maybe the US public schools can't be fixed. Maybe the private schools will
take this up. Maybe the Canadians, maybe the Dutch.

In the long run though I can't imagine how you can have a thriving democracy
in a country where the majority of people isn't expected to know how to
think. I presumed the idea that that school was largely about teaching
children how to think. I thought this was conventional wisdom in a
democracy. Maybe I'm just too Canadian or something. I am quite discouraged
that the goal itself is in question, but I don't want to get into a
controversy about it on this list.

The proposition that interests me is whether Python was the right tool for
the job.

Presuming that some school system somewhere *wanted* cognitive ability in
high school graduates, would a modest amount of programming would help? If
so, is Python the right language for that purpose?

mt
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