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The Register recently ran a story about how US computer-science classes churn out cut-n-paste slackers – and yes, that's a bad thing:
Computer science (CS) students in the US aren't being taught properly, and their classes are too limited in scope, says one IT think-tank.
The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) says that its most recent study [PDF] of curriculum in the US has found that not enough schools are offering computer science classes, and those that do aren't going in-depth enough.
As a result, the ITIF says, many universities are failing to produce the diverse, well-trained graduates that companies seek to hire.
"There is the possibility that interest in the field could again wane like it did in 2003 following the burst of the tech bubble," ITIF warns.
"To maintain the field's current momentum, the perception of computer science needs to shift from its being considered a fringe, elective offering or a skills-based course designed to teach basic computer literacy or coding alone."
The report found that at the high school level, dedicated computer science classes are mostly limited to affluent schools, and when the courses are taught, girls and minority students are rarely enrolled.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday June 03 2016, @09:16PM
You can't teach the quest for knowledge that is necessary to be a true scientist.
The obvious rebuttal is that we have millennia of evidence that you can. Interest in science is just as much a learned activity as the actual knowledge itself.
Certainly not by our current system of education.
Why would that be relevant, if the task is already strictly impossible?
Perhaps we should go back to the ways of apprenticeship?
Go back? You just described grad school.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 03 2016, @09:23PM
The obvious rebuttal is that we have millennia of evidence that you can.
Do we? Show me this evidence. All I see is the occasional flash of genius in an ocean of mediocrity, generation after generation. Oh we may have gained a few more geniuses per unit time once we actually allowed people to be LITERATE, but I think you over-rate education. All it's good for it training more clerks, salesmen and other useless parasites who suck at the teat of progress but do nothing to advance society themselves.
(Score: 2, Informative) by khallow on Friday June 03 2016, @10:51PM
An older philosophical example is Plato of Athens who was influenced in his interests by tutors and later, Cratylus, a disciple of Heraclitus. Plato later moved on to Socrates and achieved renown a couple of decades later.
My point here is that these people "flash" as you put it because they were exposed to good ideas by good teachers and then became interested. They weren't automatically interested in these things from the start. No one is borne with an interest in rhetoric, philosophy, or theology. It has to be learned.
All I see is the occasional flash of genius in an ocean of mediocrity, generation after generation.
Why is your perception relevant? What does a genius farmer or a genius janitor look like in the annuals of history? Your blindness is a terrible basis for belief.
Oh we may have gained a few more geniuses per unit time once we actually allowed people to be LITERATE, but I think you over-rate education. All it's good for it training more clerks, salesmen and other useless parasites who suck at the teat of progress but do nothing to advance society themselves.
Just because you don't understand the value of clerks, salesmen, and similar careers doesn't mean that they are parasites. Just because you don't understand the value of an education to someone who is not one of your "flashes" doesn't mean that education is over-rated. It just means you don't understand. Your ignorance is a terrible basis for belief.
Sophisticated trade is one of the traits that makes us human. Education in particular is a trade of knowledge. There is a huge exchange of knowledge and general improvement of the human condition which you completely ignore here.
You may well be really, really good at something, but here, you're really bad at understanding why education exists. It's not just for the rock stars of knowledge to be better at the things they are really, really good at. It's also for exposing people, including the mediocre, to ideas outside of their narrow comfort zones and to help people be better people.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 04 2016, @02:29AM
What does a genius farmer or a genius janitor look like in the annuals of history?
What does a genius couch potato look like in the annals of history? Picking a very specific task so that you can claim that lots of people are "geniuses" is cheap. Cheap, but easy.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday June 08 2016, @06:32PM
What does a genius couch potato look like in the annals of history? Picking a very specific task so that you can claim that lots of people are "geniuses" is cheap. Cheap, but easy.
But the point remains. There's plenty of smart people in low profile jobs that will never show up in history. Your argument is based on observation bias.
Maybe you could work on perceiving and thinking better rather than complain about cheap and easy it is to rebut your arguments.