Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!gatech!uflorida!codas!pdn!reggie
From: reggie@pdn.UUCP (George W. Leach)
Newsgroups: comp.edu
Subject: Re: Computer Education Programs for Elementary Teachers
Message-ID: <2424@pdn.UUCP>
Date: 8 Mar 88 13:27:29 GMT
References: <8472@g.ms.uky.edu> <308@brambo.UUCP>
Reply-To: reggie@pdn.UUCP (George W. Leach)
Organization: Paradyne Corporation,   Largo FL
Lines: 34

In article <308@brambo.UUCP> morgan@brambo.UUCP (Morgan W. Jones) writes:
>
>Why would you want to teach elementary students to program?

    I agree!  I don't want my son taught how to program in grade school.
Nevermind the fact that they will not be taught properly, they must first
learn many other things before they can use the computer to solve problems
by programming it.

    Not everyone is cut out for programming.  Is it a necessary skill?
I don't think so.  Certainly, computers will have a major role to play
in our children's lives.  But they will mostly be end users of software,
not programmers.


>Computers these days really do have so much to offer youngsters, but
>programming really is a waste of their time since so much knowledge is
>needed to program something useful, and most of what is taught by
>elementary/secondary school teachers has to be untaught in
>university.


    Correct!  However, the only reason I became involved with computer
science was because we had an old teletype linked up to a PDP-8 (I think)
over a phone line.  We learned to program in Basic.  Without that course
I would have been majoring in history or something like that in college.



-- 
George W. Leach					Paradyne Corporation
{gatech,rutgers,attmail}!codas!pdn!reggie	Mail stop LF-207
Phone: (813) 530-2376				P.O. Box 2826
						Largo, FL  34649-2826