Computer Science Education: It’s Not Shop Class
1st January 2010
Read it. Then read it again, paragraph by paragraph. Pay attention to what is not being said as well as what is, and how it is.
Note certain unspoken assumptions:
- Unless the federal government is involved, especially in funding, forget optimism.
- These dastardly local communities are wasting their time focusing on “core courses”, i.e. essential literacy and numeracy training at which American schools, especially American government schools, notoriously suck.
- High-school computer education needs to focus on abstract computer science rather than practical stuff that might, you know, get you a job.
The basic attitude toward education is equally clear: forget all this practical stuff, let’s get our hands into the theory and be abstract. The writer, and the people he cites, quite obviously lose sight of the distinction between high school and college. They forget that half of the people in the country are below average in intelligence, and hence aren’t appropriate targets for this concentration on abstract science; they need something that they can do for pay that will keep themselves and their families fed. Every kid in America isn’t Chelsea Clinton, child of two Crustian over-achievers and destined from the womb for AP courses and an investment banking – or computer science – career.
This is the flaw in the ‘progressive’ world-view, as ironically delineated by that classic über-Liberal Garrison Keillor: it assumes that all women are strong, that all men are good-looking, and especially that all children are above average. In other words, it is completely detached from reality. And, as with most things completely detached from reality, programs built upon these fanciful theories inevitably come crashing down–after you and I have paid for them with our tax money, of course.