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Within a few years, every single student in the San Francisco Unified School District will be studying computer science, at all grade levels.
The city’s Board of Education unanimously approved the measure during its weekly meeting on Tuesday evening.
"Information technology is now the fastest growing job sector in San Francisco, but too few students currently have access to learn the Computer Science skills that are crucial for such careers," Board President Emily Murase said in a statement on Wednesday. "We are proud to be at the forefront of creating a curriculum that will build on the knowledge and skills students will need starting as early as preschool."
According to the district, computer science classes are relatively rare across the United States.
"Currently, no national, state, or local standards exist for Computer Science and the academic research in Computer Science education is quite limited," the board wrote. "As such, a cohesive progression of Computer Science knowledge and skills does not yet exist."
It's the year 2015. Why isn't CompSci a mandatory part of the curriculum everywhere in America? It was at my gymnasium (academic high school) in Germany, and that was 25 years ago.
Original Submission
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Sunday June 14 2015, @03:53PM
Well, the problem is that it is hard to test understanding. Testing memorized knowledge is easy. You ask for it, and then you compare the given answer with the expected answer (which is considered the "correct" answer, by definition). If they match, it's a point, otherwise it's no point.
Now imagine you'd try to propose an education that focuses on understanding instead of learning. What would be the result? Well, those educated children would be worse at the standardized knowledge tests (obviously, since they did spend less time memorizing stuff). Therefore your method would have been "objectively proven worse".
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by patrick on Sunday June 14 2015, @04:32PM
Actually, for the past decade, I've taught in a school that focuses on understanding instead of rote memorization. We don't give them any tests except one standardized test a year, and they score equal to (or slightly above) demographically similar schools.
But we start at kindergarten and go up from there to Middle School. You can't suddenly switch a Middle School full of teachers & kids who are used to the "traditional" lecture/worksheet based curriculum to our model and hope for success (though I've seen schools try). Both teachers & students don't do well. You have to start from kindergarten, allow the children to keep their habit of exploring & learning for themselves, and build from there.
(Score: 2) by Anal Pumpernickel on Sunday June 14 2015, @06:07PM
Someone who truly understands something will very likely be able to pass some poorly-designed standardized test with ease.
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Monday June 15 2015, @08:13AM
Someone who truly understands something will very likely be able to pass some poorly-designed standardized test with ease.
Not always. I've seen "science" tests where the questions might be something like:
"Who invented the mining safety lamp?"
A - Albert Einstein
B - Humphry Davy
C - Lord Cavendish
D - Isaac Newton
Understanding all about gas combustion at a metal mesh interface won't help you there.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 2) by Anal Pumpernickel on Monday June 15 2015, @11:41AM
You're right. I guess I was thinking more about actual math questions when I said that. If it's just rote memorizing random facts, it wouldn't really help.