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I can't tell if you're just trolling or if this is actually your sincere interpretation. Did we read the same article, at all? The takeaway from the one I read is, "if all you do is present information in a way that's accessible to extremely bright self-directed students and let the rest fail, you're not a real teacher. Our entire job is to find ways to make programming accessible and compelling to people that it doesn't immediately click with."

I'm not sure how you wound up reading an article about racially segregated CS education as a means of enriching the upper class.

I just think it's a tragedy that the prof only goes this far.

The observation in the article you paraphrased is more the realization of a student or bright child, not a fucking professor. It's sad that we let things degenerate this far in regard to CS education. Only in CS is this "let the rest fail" the conventional wisdom (conventional idiocy that is).

And yes, racial segregation of classes is something that enriches the upper class in general, and the prof is advocating this and that alone makes me hold her in contempt.

1) Do note that most college professors receive no training or education in teaching. That's not what many are hired for; it's sort of peripheral to the job. It's not a CS-only problem, either.

2) The post does not advocate racial segregation, but desegregation. And as noted in the comments, interventions targeted at improving learning for women/racial minorities/veterans/distance students/etc tend to improve learning for everyone.

> And yes, racial segregation of classes is something that enriches the upper class in general, and the prof is advocating this

What in the world are you talking about? This?

"...there are substantial differences in the way that various segments of the population learn ... maybe we need to use pedagogies that work better for each group."

Do you really view this as a proposal to segregate classes by race or along any other lines? The obvious intent is to change how the material is taught to accommodate these differences, not to establish separate CS courses for each group.

What could "use pedagogies that work better for each group" possibly mean other than racial and gender segregation?

Here I'll break this down into pseudocode.

    for each group in racial_gender_groups:
        teachWithMaterialFor(group);

Hell, she even cited "genetics" and "the way the brain is wired." You can't get any more blatant than this.

Even if you assume the most intellectually lazy thing here, this is not yet an argument for segregated classes. For a lazy example, I'll use height: men are on average taller than women. It does not mean we need to segregate them from each other. It means that we need to put items at a level where most people can reach them, and provide mechanisms for people who are dramatically shorter than the norm. That's nice for the ladies, but also helps short guys, people of any gender who are in wheelchairs, little people, etc. All without segregating.

In my classes I have a lot of students educated under a Chinese system and then many educated under a US system. They come with different background. I don't segregate them, but I do actively think about how their learning experiences have been different and how I can challenge all with material that doesn't needlessly advantage one over the other. Every now and then I have a German or a Cameroonian and that seems to work fine for them too.

I'm not a fan of arguments from genetics or brain wiring for teaching. It gets lazy, as noted above. But men and women do have some difference, and training your Crossfit crew for pull-ups with methods that are based on your experiences of the genders' musculatures and previous experience with pull-ups is just sensible. A lot of our CS experiences come with cultural context, rather than from brain wiring. Fine.

> My negativity here is NOTHING compared to the negativity and resentment by the professor in the article, who cloaks it in positive language.

Please note you're assuming the worst of people, and appear to me to be choosing to give no benefit of the doubt. Would you be willing to reconsider doing this? At least for a moment?

> On the other hand, he is advocating for a Cult of Computer Science with specially designed courses for different races of people.

I read the exact opposite into what she's saying: That we have specifically designed courses for white males (that happen to be open to all) and should consider mixing the design up to better serve a broader range.

I base this partly on the fact that she specifically attacks the idea of racial segregation that you seem to think she's suggesting in the intro:

>> Throughout history, and even today in certain parts of the world, attitudes like this have been the basis for keeping entire segments of the population uneducated (“teaching women to read and write?! seriously, they can’t do it, look how much longer it takes for them to learn” or “blacks in Universities?! seriously, they can’t do it, look how their grades are so much lower”). This is basically the attitude of a class of educators who live so much inside the box of convention and intellectual lazyness that they are uncapable of seeing the big picture.

For what it's worth, I would call this negativity. I certainly wouldn't be surprised if there's some resentment there: I'd certainly be resentful if someone scoffed at teaching me how to read and write! I would call it uncloaked negative language.

But, in all these things, it seems to be against segregation, not for it!

On the topic of learning styles: What I've read hasn't mentioned much about race or sex. I believe that we all - even as individuals, regardless of race or sex - use multiple styles, and that we all can benefit from multiple approaches. I certainly don't always get everything, and having an explanation re-framed in a new way - in a new style, one might say - gives me another opportunity to understand.

I think, at worst, she meant to appeal to our sense of fairness and equality by borrowing - perhaps awkwardly - by tying it to the civil rights movement. I'm skeptical at best about how relevant sex or race is. I'm not willing to crucify her over that though.

He?