<story><title>Obama Pledges $4B to Computer Science in US Schools</title><url>http://www.wired.com/2016/01/obama-pledges-4-billion-to-computer-science-in-us-schools/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>throwaway420</author><text>People are intelligent in many different ways and I don&amp;#x27;t believe that most people have the abstract thinking skills necessary to really thrive in computer science.&lt;p&gt;Forcing everybody to take part in computer science education is probably going to frustrate the hell out of most people (make them feel stupid and annoyed at having to do this stuff) and dumb down the curriculum for the small percentage of kids who would naturally thrive at this stuff.&lt;p&gt;Also, given the insanity in the education field, I don&amp;#x27;t see too many actually good computer science teachers wanting to be there even if more money is being thrown around. If I had to guess, a lot more career minded Machiavellian types are going to be trying to grab onto the gravy train and get some of these gigs and the side effect of this will be that the kids get even crappier teachers.&lt;p&gt;Like most government programs, on the surface this sounds good. I could very well be wrong, but like most government programs it will probably end up costing more money than planned and have the opposite of its intended effect.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>codingdave</author><text>Most people are not going to be novelists, but all students learn to write. Most people are not going to be mathematicians, but they all learn basic math. Sure, if you are bad at it, it will frustrate you. Go talk to any 10 year old and you will find this is already true for existing subject. Pick any subject - learning it in school doesn&amp;#x27;t mean you are going to do it for a career, but it is part of education so that you understand enough to get by in a world where those subjects are important. It is also an opportunity for kids who do excel at it to learn that at a younger age and have more time to develop their abilities. but we are talking about basic education, not bootcamps to turn every kid into a coder.&lt;p&gt;Also, the existing programs are finding that you don&amp;#x27;t need, or even want, computer science teachers to be teaching kids. You want professional educators, who understand children and their development, to teach kids. Again, we&amp;#x27;re talking a basic level of curriculum, so having a professional elementary educator learn a new curriculum is working quite well already.&lt;p&gt;As far as actually developing that curriculum, code.org is a really good basis for it, which many local programs are using. most supplement it with additional material, and I know of at least one program that is funding grants to districts to develop their own local programs, while at the same time formalizing curriculum in a way that they can be shared nationwide with districts that have not yet had the resources to create their own.&lt;p&gt;This is not a new idea coming from the government that needs to be tried - it is an existing idea already succeeding in some districts that may receive funding to expand.</text></comment>
<story><title>Obama Pledges $4B to Computer Science in US Schools</title><url>http://www.wired.com/2016/01/obama-pledges-4-billion-to-computer-science-in-us-schools/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>throwaway420</author><text>People are intelligent in many different ways and I don&amp;#x27;t believe that most people have the abstract thinking skills necessary to really thrive in computer science.&lt;p&gt;Forcing everybody to take part in computer science education is probably going to frustrate the hell out of most people (make them feel stupid and annoyed at having to do this stuff) and dumb down the curriculum for the small percentage of kids who would naturally thrive at this stuff.&lt;p&gt;Also, given the insanity in the education field, I don&amp;#x27;t see too many actually good computer science teachers wanting to be there even if more money is being thrown around. If I had to guess, a lot more career minded Machiavellian types are going to be trying to grab onto the gravy train and get some of these gigs and the side effect of this will be that the kids get even crappier teachers.&lt;p&gt;Like most government programs, on the surface this sounds good. I could very well be wrong, but like most government programs it will probably end up costing more money than planned and have the opposite of its intended effect.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>wfo</author><text>I think you&amp;#x27;re overestimating how hard CS is compared to other fields (hint: it&amp;#x27;s not harder). They teach calculus in high school. And calculus-based physics. They have autoshop and woodshop which is honestly very similar to the kind of CS I would imagine high school students learning (understanding systems, debugging, building them, learning which pieces fit where and how to make them do what you want, following tutorials and being able to figure things out when they go wrong)</text></comment>