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posted by chromas on Monday March 25 2019, @06:02AM   Printer-friendly
from the ^s([^\w\d\s])(?:.*?[^\\]\1){2} dept.

Submitted via IRC for Bytram

Is Computer Code a Foreign Language?

Maryland’s legislature is considering a bill to allow computer coding courses to fulfill the foreign language graduation requirement for high school. A similar bill passed the Florida State Senate in 2017 (but was ultimately rejected by the full Legislature), and a federal version proposed by Senators Bill Cassidy, Republican of Louisiana, and Maria Cantwell, Democrat of Washington, is being considered in Congress.

The animating idea behind these bills is that computer coding has become a valuable skill. This is certainly true. But the proposal that foreign language learning can be replaced by computer coding knowledge is misguided: It stems from a widely held but mistaken belief that science and technology education should take precedence over subjects like English, history and foreign languages.

As a professor of languages and literatures, I am naturally skeptical of such a position. I fervently believe that foreign language learning is essential for children’s development into informed and productive citizens of the world. But even more urgent is my alarm at the growing tendency to accept and even foster the decline of the sort of interpersonal human contact that learning languages both requires and cultivates.

[...] The difference between natural and computer languages is not merely one of degree, with natural languages’ involving vocabularies that are several orders of magnitude larger than those of computer languages. Natural languages aren’t just more complex versions of the algorithms with which we teach machines to do tasks; they are also the living embodiments of our essence as social animals. We express our love and our losses, explore beauty, justice and the meaning of our existence, and even come to know ourselves all through natural languages.


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  • (Score: 5, Informative) by AthanasiusKircher on Monday March 25 2019, @12:52PM (2 children)

    by AthanasiusKircher (5291) on Monday March 25 2019, @12:52PM (#819468) Journal

    I couldn't pass a foreign language course to saving my life, yet in the past forty years I probably written code in over thirty languages.

    Perhaps you couldn't pass a native English language course, either?

    People like me shouldn't be held back because we don't have an aptitude for the skills YOU deem necessary. You probably couldn't do what I do, either.

    By that logic, what is the justification for the high school math requirement? I'm being serious, here. Not that we should drop math, but that just as many people are forced into classes with skills YOU likely deem necessary (and for which an even greater number of people claim not to have an "aptitude" for), and which are rarely directly relevant to most people's lives.

    Poll people sometime and see how many people EVER use math beyond middle-school level. The vast majority of people likely never use algebra again after high school, at least not in the formal symbolic manipulation sense. They may use logical skills to solve for an unknown, but good math teachers start showing students how to think about those in problems even in elementary school.

    The very simple concept of symbolic representation (x and y, etc.) is usually discussed in middle school, too, which is sufficient to do a lot of basic coding.

    All the formal apparatus of high school math (geometry proofs, algebra 2 level shuffling around symbols in complicated equations, trigonometric, calculus, etc.) is never used by people in their lives. And for those who do need it, they generally have a few circumscribed sets of problems that they can look up how to do online. My father was a blue-collar worker who on occasion had to solve a trigonometry problem, like finding an angle or side of a triangle. You know how he did it? No, he didn't set up an equation and solve for x. No, he didn't have to recall definitions of trig functions or the Law of Sines or Cosines. He had a little "cheat book" that had diagrams of all the different arrangements of sides and angles one might be given in a triangle, and it listed the stuff you needed to punch into a calculator to solve that particular problem and find that side or angle. That's the level of math real people often use.

    Another proof: the GRE math section is easier than the SAT math section. (At least that was traditionally the case; I know the SAT has been changed a bit in recent years, but I know that GRE math was for many years easier than SAT math.) What's the reason? Well, I don't even know why exactly they even bother with the GRE math section as it is, because for the large number of non-tech related graduate programs, math competency is nearly irrelevant. And for the hard sciences, math, engineering, etc., the level of GRE math is probably not sufficient to show whether students will be able to do well in a graduate program. So, maybe the test is relevant for 10% of potential grad school applicants in fields where some math is needed, but not a lot.

    Point is -- poll even most engineers and ask them how often they use calculus. And no, not just looking up an equation in a book that has a derivative in it and plugging in some numbers from a table. I mean actually fluently using calculus in an active way to solve a novel problem, write a novel equation or three with integrals or derivatives or something more advanced in them, and then applying the solution, as one might be expected to do in an actual calculus class.

    Not many. And after a decade or more out of college, I doubt many tech people could summon their calculus skills in this fashion without some substantial review. If they even had them in the first place -- because you should also ask, if you're going to compare it to language learning, what percentage of high school students actually achieve "fluency" in higher math?

    Most people never use algebra, nor do most people have an immediate aptitude for it. I'm someone who has actually taught high school math, and I understand the conceptual challenges in introducing this stuff for the first time to most people. Most people are CAPABLE, but it can take hard work. And stuff beyond algebra? The vast majority of people will never even think of it again, even though our high schools require years of math and most students are encouraged to take higher math.

    None of this, however, is meant to be an argument against teaching math. To the contrary, I think there are lots of cognitive benefits to learning about abstraction and applying it to problems, to thinking of the logical steps necessary to prove something on the basis of limited given information in a step-by-step fashion, etc. Not to mention the attention to detail necessary to solve a complex math problem, whose meticulousness is a marker of a careful student by itself. Perhaps one could offer other courses that give similar benefits, but the point is that there are lots of benefits beyond the small number of students who ever achieve great fluency.

    Similarly with language, there are benefits to understanding culture, to learning a language with etymological roots that might help you understand words even in your native language, to confronting grammatical structures that are both similar and different from your own (many students say they only deeply understand grammar in their native language by studying another), etc., etc.

    And perhaps there are ways to achieve such skills aside from a language requirement too, just as one might achieve what high school math does by teaching some other things. I agree there may be a need for curricular reform and serious questions about why we do what we do. But there are lots of potential benefits to taking even a basic foreign language class.

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  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 25 2019, @02:08PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 25 2019, @02:08PM (#819508)

    The main issue with language in the K-12 system is that it's not taught effectively. The time and resources available should really be more of a light conversational class with far less grammar. If a student can't carry on a basica conversation, even if limited in scope, then all the grammar rules in the world aren't going to help.

    But, the grammar and vocab is the main thing that is taught and tested, leading to tons of students who pass the course, but can't use the language for anything. And because they can't use the language for anything, they aren't in a position to use what they've learned to either maintain or advance their language skills.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 25 2019, @06:16PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 25 2019, @06:16PM (#819662)

    This may be news for you, but... we don't require calculus for graduation.

    My wife's sister whined to us that she had to pass an algebra class in college. In college!!! In other words, she graduated from high school without it. I see that in the graduation requirements for my kid's college too; a bit of trivial algebra, just 7th grade to the better students, is all that is required.

    Being able to solve a calculus problem is far less valuable than being able to set one up. If you can set one up, then you can look up how to solve it. That is of use, though most people would benefit more from statistics.

    Really though, we don't seriously require math. Kids who struggle with it are diagnosed with bullshit learning disabilities and then allowed to graduate without math, destroying the value of a high school diploma for everybody. (this is partly why college is required for so many jobs) Those who don't get diagnosed are still getting away with just being able to punch numbers into a calculator. Really, it is that bad and sometimes worse.