Re: Programming languages for the very young

From: Samuel Walters (swalters_usenet_at_yahoo.com)
Date: 01/18/04 

Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2004 12:13:21 GMT

| Marc Spitzer said |
> Teaching people, especially children, to think is hard. And many
> teachers do not have a good handle on logical thinking to begin with,
> they were never taught themselves. Also I think that many schools do
> training instead of education, it is so much less work for the teachers
> and the school.

Part of the problem is deeply ingrained in the teaching philosophy. Most
classes are "answer oriented." That is, they concentrate on enumerating
the facts of a situation. Facts are necessary, but questions are more
important.

When tutoring math with my students, I am very "question oriented." I try
to teach them how to ask the right questions because the right questions
not only produce context, but generally make the right answer obvious. For
instance, if I were teaching history, I might ask "When did Columbus sail
the ocean blue?" The problem is that the date isn't terribly important.
Sure, it provides context when cross-referenced with other dates, but
there are far more interesting things to know. "Why did Columbus sail
west? What was going on in the world at that time? Why was it so
important that he sailed west? Where did he think he landed when he made
it to America? What did he do when he got to America? What did he do
when he got back to Europe? What changes in the world did that cause?"
etc. etc. etc. I would rather my students be able to ask those questions
than answer the first one.

Math and computer instructors can be particularly *bad* at this. They
generally "just got it" when they learned these subjects themselves, and
don't stop to think that their students might be very confused as to what
the issues are, much less how to answer a question.
 
> Personally I think computers do a lot to interfere with education,
> especially in lower grades when children need to learn social skills.
> You know like how to pass notes without getting caught or read and
> discuss books. I would much rather see kids take a course in formal
> debating then computer literacy, it's more useful.

Agreed, but I think it's a matter of *how* computers are used, not the
computers themselves. If I ever become a full-fledged math or computer
teacher, I plan on having my students work in groups often. The point of
math and programming, beyond basic numeracy, is to teach problem solving.
It is one of the purest forms of problem solving we can teach. In the
real world, we rarely solve a problem alone in a vacuum. We work with a
group, or go out and find human resources to help us. That is an element
sorely missing from many curricula today.

Oh, and as far as important classes go. I think that woodshop can
actually be one of the most important problem-solving courses out there.
The fact that it's very physical leverages a different mode of learning.
Debate also has this interesting aspect in that it is not "book learning,"
but rather "participatory education."

Sam Walters. 

-- 
Never forget the halloween documents.
http://www.opensource.org/halloween/
""" Where will Microsoft try to drag you today?
    Do you really want to go there?"""

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