[Edu-sig] CP4E

[Arthur]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Kirby Urner [mailto:urnerk at qwest.net]
> Sent: Sunday, April 10, 2005 12:18 PM
> To: 'Arthur'; edu-sig at python.org

> The school I attended in Rome focused on eating utensils quite a bit --
> British school, there's a right way to tilt your bowl when you eat soup.

There is?

Apparently when learning in Rome from the British one does as the British
do, not as the Romans do. 

But I think you have explained the American revolution - in a nutshell ;)

> 
> Technology is pervasive and this isn't a new thing.  Sports likewise
> involve
> technology (balls, other apparatus), the skillful use and maintenance
> thereof.

Stretching exercises before the big game are also a part of sport. You're
doing a stretching exercise.  I will tell Wittgenstein. 

> 
> Now that computers have entered the picture, I see them as ubiquitous, and
> important to start practicing on early. 

That's the standard line of thinking. I know it well. And reject it, hook
line and sinker.

Though I don't generally associate you with the standard line of thinking,
so I am a little surprised at this turn.

> But understanding that files are the basic unit on a computer is
> important,
> and is better appreciated through hands-on exposure, vs. just some teacher
> saying "files are the basic unit... blah blah".  The distinction between
> human-readable e.g. text, and binary formats, the whole idea of "formats"
> is
> something to get into (segue to music below).


Blah blah blah, indeed.

Having assembled my 2004 income data for the inevitable tax filing, I have
concluded I am entitled to call myself a professional programmer.

And I can count on one hand the number of times I've need to parse a text
file line by line, and on a closed fist the number of times I've need to do
so from data retrieved live off the Web.

What you are selling as "basic skills" for a 5th grader are not, in my
experience, basic skills required of a professional programmer.  That's how
far off we are from one another.

Art


> 
> > It's not, I don't think, that I am going out of my way to be
> > argumentative. What you are saying here in fact touches what I consider
> > to be the near basic nerve where I consistently get off the bus - i.e. I
> > reject programming skills as anything near basic, and think any emphasis
> > of such skill should be directed - out of the box - at solving real and
> > more fundamental learning goals.
> 
> I see programming skills as ultra basic, yes.  Not that they're currently
> phased in that way, but I think they should be.  The idea of a loop, with
> ifs, elses, i.e. conditional processing within iteration, is as basic as
> logic itself.  It's one of those abstractions you see everywhere.  When
> the
> teacher takes attendance and makes checks next to names in an attendance
> book, that's ultra basic, and pretty much the same thing (programming,
> just
> using pre-computer tools).  When captains pick sports teams:  iteration,
> choice, a control structure, the result being the two teams.
> 
> > And that if we conclude that such an approach is unrealistic - it
> > might in fact be - than we should satisfy ourselves with programming for
> > the few with an active interest and aptitude.
> >
> 
> I'm willing to vary the intensity of exposure based on self-selection, but
> when it comes to providing basic insight into what it means to script a
> computer, to program it, to set it up with tasks, I'm not willing to just
> let a few in on this secret.  Everyone should get the basic idea, just
> like
> everyone should have a clue about how an internal combustion motor works,
> how various parts of the human body work (digestive tract vs. lungs for
> example -- not something to only tell "future doctors and nurses" about).
> 
> > To my ears you are making the "it is important to learn programming
> > because it is important to learn programming" argument, which I do not
> or
> > cannot accept. Especially from a programmer.
> 
> It's important to learn skills related to a key feature of our
> civilization:
> the automation of routine or mundane tasks such that vast amounts of data
> get processed at superhuman speeds.  We're talking about a nervous system
> as
> basic to day-to-day living as the human one -- it's the *rest* of the
> human
> nervous system (the part outside our bodies).  We also program our bodies
> of
> course, i.e. "programming" might be considered a pre-computer art and
> skill,
> depending how we define it.  Education has always been about programming -
> -
> it's just a matter of what, not whether.
> 
> > Where would you place parsing through a file, versus, say, being able to
> > read music notation - as a "basic skill" for fifth graders?  Where
> should
> > we be directing limited resources? This wouldn't in fact be a discussion
> > worth having (if it is in fact worth having) were it not for the fact
> that
> 
> > it is a hard reality that things such as music programs are suffering as
> a
> 
> > result of the prioritization of "computer skills".  And I keep thinking
> we
> 
> > are still digging out of some kind of mass technology bubble mentality
> > when we can't differentiate better than that.
> >
> > Art
> >
> 
> Parsing music notation *is* a kind of file parsing (my own 5th grader has
> been studying it) -- musical scores are files, formatted according myriad
> conventions.
> 
> Computers and music are not antithetical subjects/topics.  I'm all for
> getting more music back into the curriculum, and see computers as an ally
> (not calculators though -- they're not really up to the job).
> 
> I went through the Python + MIDI options again a few weeks back.  There's
> a
> lot more we could do.  Squeak is ahead of Python with audio tools.
> 
> Kirby
>