Comment by rhacker | Hacker News Reader

Comment by rhacker | Hacker News Reader

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8 semesters of CS in HS is serious business. I recall growing up and going to school 94-98 that we basically had a keyboard class, and some classes that taught Lotus 123 - which was kinda hilarious since I was using newer stuff at home.

At the time at home I was also writing Basic, C programs - if I had a CS course it would helped bootstrap my learning a lot better.

My dad kept saying at the time that there probably wouldn't be any programming jobs when I was older because AI was on its way to replace humans. And that was kinda wildly spread knowledge (remember this is basically quasi-pre-internet days).

Every CS course I took in college was an easy A at that point. I didn't go beyond my BS because as many of us know, the industry was calling. And I already had 2 jobs (one self-owned web development company) and worked for another company.

Zooming forward to today, I absolutely believe we won't have AI replacing humans yet - so absolutely think every HS should have a curriculum like yours if not even more aggressive. Then push a BS in CS to be more like an MS in CS. We really do need to make such advancements because, well, all other jobs are being eaten by software.

>> every HS should have a curriculum like yours if not even more aggressive.

Everyone thinks that their field should be better emphasized at highschools. I think kids should get some background in law (not laws, law) given they will have to go on and obey laws for the rest of their lives. But I know that isn't going to happen. I used to teach 2/3rd year university kids. Highschools need to spend more time teaching kids how to read because, atm, they aren't. I was facing people in their 20s who had trouble reading more than a page or two at a time, who couldn't string together sentences into coherent paragraphs. (Also, basic numeracy.)

I think most are less obnoxious about it.

I once knew a guy who thought that CS or programming at least was going to be the new glue for ALL industries. So even if people end up specializing in law, CS will be useful. He told me that about 15 years ago.

But yes, definitely agree with you, and it can start with basic contracts, implied and written.

For my 2 cents, if there's one thing we need to teach in schools, it's being nice. No one is "nice" anymore, except for innately nice people. Everyone seems to be out of niceness. I LOVE meeting people that are 50+ because, well, they are nice.

It used to be something inherited from parents, but it just keeps slipping generation to generation.

> At the time at home I was also writing Basic, C programs...

Out of curiosity, how old were you then?

And if you were advising a school on a progression, how young would you start teaching various topics? Like touch typing at age 5; sequences of commands, functions, conditionals and simple looping at age 6, used for solving puzzles in about 10-20 lines of code; expand for solving puzzles in about 20-30 lines of code at age 7, and so on.

Got my first book on QBasic just before I was in middle school, but can't remember my age, but probably 11 or 12. I was getting into C when high school started.

I wouldn't know what age to put kids through that - I don't have kids, but I know they are already exposed to computers much much earlier than I was. But 6,7,8 still feels slightly too young for me for that kind of comprehension.

And just to edit: The only requirement to this stuff is focus and the curiosity to learn. So younger aged kids may very well be adept so long as home life, etc.. are stable in that regard.

It's funny, because by the time I was 5(late 80s), I was always going on the computer a couple times a day, I now have 2 kids of my own, who are older than 5, who don't touch the computer at all.

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