Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site uwvax.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!mit-eddie!godot!harvard!seismo!uwvax!brian From: brian@uwvax.UUCP (Brian Pinkerton) Newsgroups: net.college,net.cse Subject: Re: Should Computer Science be taught at the High School level? Message-ID: <82@uwvax.UUCP> Date: Sat, 15-Dec-84 21:15:03 EST Article-I.D.: uwvax.82 Posted: Sat Dec 15 21:15:03 1984 Date-Received: Mon, 17-Dec-84 03:55:08 EST References: <241@mss.UUCP> <705@ames.UUCP> Distribution: net Organization: U of Wisconsin CS Dept Lines: 19 Xref: watmath net.college:526 net.cse:259 Logic is certainly the most important word here. The ability to arrive at a conclusion given some inputs. Also important, I think, is the ability to break down an idea into its components. This is why I DON'T advocate teaching programming languages to 1st semester CS students. What good does teaching some pascal do if they can't make use of its structured nature? I would suggest that students take a class in some sort of analysis, where they don't have to know much about a specific topic to learn the methods of problem description and solution. If you throw this plus learning a programming language into the same course, are your students going to learn what you want them to? brian -- Brian Pinkerton @ wisconsin ...!{allegra,heurikon,ihnp4,seismo,sfwin,ucbvax,uwm-evax}!uwvax!brian brian@wisc-rsch.arpa