Comment by ambivalence | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ambivalence | Hacker News Reader

You surely shared this so I can weigh in. No? Not really? Well, here's my opinion anyway. In this infographic Bret Victor claims that expecting college education to prepare you for a day job is an invalid idea. He also implies that an opinion of an MIT mathematician is inherently more trustworthy and correct than opinions of dozens of business leaders, politicians, educators, astronauts, and, oh, Stephen Hawking (“Whether you want to uncover the secrets of the universe, or you just want to pursue a career in the 21st century, basic computer programming is an essential skill to learn.“). Oh, you missed that in his infographic? It's probably because it conveniently wasn't there. Check out the full list at http://code.org/quotes

But really, is it fair to compare a long, structured statement with brief quotes that are meant to be an effective marketing tool? Before you cringe at the dirty m-word, consider what is being marketed here. Kids now learn creationism, liberal arts, and opinionated history at school. Coding is a refreshingly logical, concrete and objective field of study. It's worth getting it to the 90% of high schools that don't teach it yet, even if it ends up being trivial if-then-else turtle-make-30-steps-forward. We're at a time where it's more about simply getting the foot in the door.

Then again, it's easier to fire up Illustrator and call bullshit on an initiative to bring more rational education to the curriculum. This is the depth of thought that powers elitism and the status quo. Snarky infographics that suggest that programming is worthless without tying it to specific so called Powerful Ideas are harmful. Even if they're drawn by a world-class designer and electrical engineer. Or maybe especially then.

But is it more rational education? I think his point is that programming as an end itself does little to help empower students. Programming as a tool to enable further exploration of higher concepts is the goal he thinks we should be pursuing, and if code.org presents programming as the goal and ignores why, then I think he's justified in his criticism.

I think it's worth examining history for a parallel. If in the 1920's there was a large push towards mechanical knowledge of the populace (but not necessarily science and engineering) because an understanding of mechanical engines is increasingly essential in todays world, we need 120,000 trained mechanics every year, and the policy at Boeing is literally to hire as many talented mechanics as they can find, I think in hindsight I might also say that it sounds a bit like they are just trying to fill an economic need. Which is fine. But Bret Victor seems to care about teaching and learning, and code.org, from it's main page, seems to care little about that.

The extent to which some people here are feeling personally slighted I think kind of proves Brett's point.

> In this infographic Bret Victor claims that expecting college education to prepare you for a day job is an invalid idea.

No, he opposes forming policy around the idea that the primary purpose of education should be vocational. In reality, most US education policy already works this way, so completely divorced from any value judgement, as a student it would be foolish to pretend it isn't already true.

> Oh, you missed that in his infographic? It's probably because it conveniently wasn't there.

Maybe he left it out of the post because he is interested in criticizing a subset of the marketing, not because he wants to lambast code.org and needs to hide the fact that many of the quotations are agreeable.

No, he's just being effective. The problem with people who write a lot of meaningful things is that some of it is just useless.

The website design is good and effective and a lot of people need to learn from him. If you think his idea is bad it's not going to work writing this, you have to actually fight the war.

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