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Comment by webo | Hacker News Reader

I really don't think teaching some basic syntax and some scripting is "computer science." It would help students a lot more if we started offering courses like discrete mathematics instead.

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I know HN is really, really focused on semantics. I know this. But seriously, every single time one of these articles pops up with the GP calling programming 'cs', the majority of the discussion is focused on calling out how it's incorrect.

Now I may be wrong, but I know that I personally would much rather have been creating something with some basic syntax as opposed to learning theory while I was in grade school. Being able to see your seemingly magical incantations create something cool is going to be a lot more encouraging than studying discrete mathematics.

Theory is cool. Theory has its place, but before you even encounter the situations in which it's applicable, I'd say try making something first.

EDIT -- Especially when these kids are low income. Discrete mathematics to inner city kids is about as relatable as Biggie is to Wall Street bankers.

I agree it's probably better to teach children some basic syntax instead of discrete mathematics but I think part of webo's point was you can teach basic syntax without calling it "Computer Science"

I really don't see webo making that point, but I could be mistaken.

And conversely, it is possible to go through an entire Computer Science course without touching any code. It's a distinction with a difference.

Especially when these kids are low income. Discrete mathematics to inner city kids is about as relatable as Biggie is to Wall Street bankers.

Is this something recent? I went to grade school (long time ago) with low-income and inner-city kids and quite a few were intellectually curious and interested in abstract ideas.

No not at all! The poster I was replying to was suggesting using DM alone instead of basic scripting.

They are already planning on having AP CS which is a much more in depth class for those interested later on.

The point I suspect is not to make them all into little Knuths. It's to make sure they have at least some exposure, so they can decide if this something they want to pursue in a focused way later on -- and, importantly, regardless of their parents' own professional background (or lack thereof).

BTW, perhaps you're forgetting -- they're just 8th graders. We're luck of half of them can pass a pre-Algebra class. Any coding skills we can get them to learn on top of that is a huge, huge win.

Agreed. That sort of thing is to "computer science" as "shop class" is to "mechanical engineering".

Mechanical engineering students generally take many shop classes, and computer science students spend a lot of their time learning vocation-styled computer skills. All are important, I could get behind getting more of any or all of these into highschools (though programming less so than the other three), but I don't think we should be honest with the terminology we use. If for nothing else, we should keep our terminology straight and honest so that we do not perpetuate misconceptions about what fields actually entail.

Even if it isn't "true" CS, they're likely to learn useful skills that can help them automate repetitive tasks and things like that, and give them enough exposure to decide if it's something they may want to do in the future. If they decide to study it more in depth, awesome. If not, the worst that happens is they got a few skills that may help them in the future

Aye, it seems like a good enough idea.. I just think that they should be more accurate with what they call it. Inaccuracy does not do anybody any favours.

It's K-12. They don't name anything quite right.

Having some programming background is a good thing. In fact, I think it would be better if the courses were more broad than deep, and looked at things like programming graphics, programming robots, programming microcontrollers in appliances, the internet protocols, wireless networking, encryption, sequential circuits, logic gates, etc.

Yeah and in so-called "English language" why are they teaching kids how to use semi-colons and paragraphs instead of etymology and James Joyce.

Because James Joyce is taught in English Literature, not English Language.

A mind-numbingly tedious point, even for HN. Unsurprisingly English language courses also require study of written texts [0] but that's irrelevant for the purposes of the analogy.

[0] http://www.aqa.org.uk/subjects/english/gcse/english-language...

In the UK, kids do (or did) get taught various forms of discrete mathematics at fairly young ages. Boolean algebra, very basic set theory etc.

However, to get some basic programming done, you don't really need any of this, and in fact the code may help you grasp some of the maths so it might even be better to start that first.

Either way, the world runs on code now, it's everywhere. Giving all children a small taste of that, so that they can decide later if they want to pursue it as an interest or a career, is a good thing.

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