Is programming the new math?
11th April 2011
I remember a friend of mine getting his kids into calculus by posing the problem ‘Okay, you’ve got a ten-foot-wide corridor that right-angles into a five-foot-wide corridor. How long a spear can you get around that corner?’
It was amazing.
Moreover – and this is risky for me to say, because if this sentiment went viral I’d no longer have a job – it seems pointless to be teaching kids math en masse when we could be teaching them more programming instead.
Well, not necessarily programming, but certainly individualized instruction paced to the mental process of the student — for which programming is an excellent tool, of course; the mental discipline and structured approach to problem-solving required to write correct programs is certainly useful in many areas of life, as well.