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Comment by BuckRogers | Hacker News Reader

They've just kept Apple on the hit list because they know they had more money than brains to attempt to purchase an iPad for each student. If they want to add more technology to the classroom, hire some programmers to build educational software with a committee of teachers. Make it a webapp so the district can use whatever array of hardware they already own.

This was just a school district looking to waste money as far as I can tell. "Deasy had said the technology effort was a civil rights imperative designed to provide low-income students with devices available to their wealthier peers."

And what a civil rights effort. Slow clap.

If you want to do something to help equalize them with their wealthier peers, buy them all Learn Python the Hard Way. Which would satisfy their need to waste money, because that book is free online.

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Contrary to popular belief everyone REALLY doesn't need to be a programmer.

Nope, but everyone doesn't need to be a mathematician, biologist, geologist, historian, or any of the other primary subjects in school either. I think that in 2015 it's hard to argue that a basic grasp of computers / software won't have at least as big of an effect on your quality of life after graduation as being able to work quadratic equations by hand, without reference.

I've personally been pretty irked by the whole "EVERYONE SHOULD LEARN TO CODE ASAP" narrative being pushed basically everywhere recently, but I agree with you here.

Sticking something like python onto the school curriculum would only be a good thing. The vast majority who do it won't become programmers, just as the vast majority who sit math don't become mathematicians, etc. but it would give kids a fun and interesting way to learn logic, create things on the computer for themselves, etc.

They have problems unique to them that they may be able to spin up little desktop apps or similar to solve, which could then go on to inspire them to become entrepreneurs, tech product creators, etc.

Regardless, there would be absolutely no harm in making it available to them.

I agree completely but, even with the glacial pace of true technical innovation I doubt that education can keep up with it.

I tend to believe we should scrap the idea of studying subjects, and go back to teaching how to think instead. In the information age, the subjects are easily accessible.

Focusing on the original Greek education of grammar, logic and rhetoric makes more sense to me today. I could see a limited subject study at the high school level, but overall I believe deciphering and processing information is far more important today than its ever been.

I'd love to have my kids focus on the trivium until high school, then move to a limited quadrivium of programming, math, history and biology at that point.

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