> It's not that Computer Science schools could not teach that stuff. It's that they don't.
Yes, this is the classic Academics v. Industry gap you see everywhere.
Teachers in an accredited program that leads to certification spend most of their time studying theory on psychology, child development, learning, and (now more than often) special education. When they get to the point where they actually have to go student teach, they have lots of knowledge but lack practical experience. As someone who has tried teaching and knows lots of teachers, classroom management is the foundation for everything that happens in a classroom.
In the whole 'teaching more people to code' momentum, the problem is usually that there is some perverse incentive to give the impression that coding is 'easy'. Coding, as most of us know, is by far, 'not easy'. In fact, for many of us, that fractal difficulty is the draw.
The whole movement of teaching CS in high schools baffles me because, again, CS does not teach one how to code. I would much rather see AP CS go away and be replaced by something that teaches Scratch and other tools as a stepping stone to teaching youth to think computationally.
This is a problem in other occupations, not just computer programming.
I have a friend who is a clinical psychotherapist. After she successfully defended her PhD dissertation, she had to complete a residency. That's typically done by working in an inpatient psychiatric hospital.
By contrast, attorneys are not expected to know how to argue actual court cases until they are taught to do so by working in a law firm - AFTER they pass the bar exam.
What really had me puzzled was that I once quite successfully defended myself - "Acted Pro Per" - in a felony case. I picked up a few legal textbooks at Powells City of Books in Portland, Oregon.
One of the books was entitled "The First Trial: Where Do I Sit? What Do I Say?"
While it is quite a good book, what I remain puzzled about is that the book addresses attorneys who have already passed the bar exam, and have been working for some time at a law firm before they even start to learn about arguing a case before a jury.
I would have thought that would be taught in law school, starting one's very first semester, but it's not. I've asked a couple of attorneys about this, and they said that yes indeed, that's they way it works in their profession.
Yes, this is the classic Academics v. Industry gap you see everywhere.
Teachers in an accredited program that leads to certification spend most of their time studying theory on psychology, child development, learning, and (now more than often) special education. When they get to the point where they actually have to go student teach, they have lots of knowledge but lack practical experience. As someone who has tried teaching and knows lots of teachers, classroom management is the foundation for everything that happens in a classroom.
In the whole 'teaching more people to code' momentum, the problem is usually that there is some perverse incentive to give the impression that coding is 'easy'. Coding, as most of us know, is by far, 'not easy'. In fact, for many of us, that fractal difficulty is the draw.
The whole movement of teaching CS in high schools baffles me because, again, CS does not teach one how to code. I would much rather see AP CS go away and be replaced by something that teaches Scratch and other tools as a stepping stone to teaching youth to think computationally.