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From: ag5@pucc-k (Henry C. Mensch)
Newsgroups: net.college,net.cse
Subject: Re: Should Computer Science be taught at the High School level?
Message-ID: <725@pucc-k>
Date: Wed, 19-Dec-84 14:31:46 EST
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Posted: Wed Dec 19 14:31:46 1984
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<<>>

	I also worked as a Teaching Ass't/Lab Ass't when I was a student
at Syracuse University, and I agree that a computer-ignorant freshman is
more desirable as a student than those who have had computing in high
school.

	One of the courses that I worked for was a freshman introduction
to Computer Science in which the language of instruction was UCI Lisp.
Of course, all those freshmen who walked in with a blank slate fared better
than those who carried high-school programming knowledge because

	-)  the high-school programmers invariably learned how to
	    'program' in BASIC or FORTRAN IV on incredibly-outdated
	    equipment (In high school, I learned on a Nova 2/10 
	    which, when driving four terminals <3@110baud, 1@300 baud>
	    was as slow as a VAX with a >30 load average),

	-)  the high-school teacher who would wind up teaching these
	    courses was either learning the material on-the-fly  or were recalling it from a course
	    in programming which they had while in college several
	    eons ago (since most high schools haven't the cash to
	    hire someone truly competent, and since private industry
	    has the cash to siphon off those math/physics/other-science
	    teachers who have had considerable experience with computers),

	-)  the students assumed that, since they had computing in
	    high school, this course wouldn't present much new knowledge,
	    and, as such, would blow it off .

	After all this, it would be easy to conclude that I am against
programming/'computer science' courses in high school.  This is *not*
the case.  

	Instead the high school course needs to be greatly modified.  
A competent teacher being paid a livable salary has to teach the course.
(The 'livable salary' part puts the high school course beyond the means
of most school systems since schools pay abysmally low salaries to their
teachers).  

	Sufficient equipment must be available to the students.
Four terminals on an incredibly slow and out-of-date machine for
>100 students doesn't quite work.  

	The bottom line:  if the course can't be taught well, then don't
teach it.  
-- 

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Henry C. Mensch  |  User Confuser | Purdue University User Services
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