All you programmers, have a good laugh at my education

[Blue Protoman]

http://arrogantc.tum...r-science-sucks


First off, remember that I'm in a public high school.

I confirmed with my AP Government teacher the other day that New York State is clamping down harder on teachers this year. How? Standardized test scores, of course. (Gag me.) Teachers who don’t put on a good show might lose their jobs.
Thus, in AP Computer Science we’ve literally done no programming since mid-November or so. Not once have we had to open our development environments. Instead, we get lots and lots of AP questions! Why bother learning anything if it detracts from the chance of getting a 5 (out of 5) on the AP test?


This class is a crock of shit. Your mileage will vary heavily based on school, but if you’ve done some programming before (as I have), you’re going to be horrendously bored.


And to clarify, expecting to be spoon fed is NOT the same as expecting to be taught. I’m teaching myself C++ and SFML in my spare time, so don’t go saying that I’m lazy.

And I hear on Stack Overflow of others who get to do these neat projects for their courses.


On Monday, when no one is looking, I'm going to write this on the whiteboard;


return (jobAtStake) ? apquestions : programming;

 

[Jourdy288]

*WEEPS FOR HUMANITY*.


Sigh, quite ironic this is.

 

[Binky]

I think the solution to much of the mess education in in can be summed up like so:




Teach students about technology, not with technology.

 

[diligentcircle]

Tests get too much credit in schools. They're useless.


OK, I lied. For math, tests are good. They're a place where you apply what you learned and solve real (albeit imaginary) problems. But for just about everything else, it's all memorizing random trivia just long enough to be able to regurgitate it. For something like engineering (which I consider programming to fit into), this doesn't make the slightest bit of sense. It also doesn't make the slightest bit of sense for just about anything else.


So, for math, we have tests. Great! For English, we have writing (e.g. essays). Great! But then, for everything else, we have tests. WTF? Even foreign languages revolve around tests when they should revolve around reading or writing or speaking!


Of course, good teachers can work around the stupid "test" system in place (thank god most of the teachers in my school were good, or I should say great, teachers), but it's an obstacle they shouldn't have to overcome. And with it getting even harder for teachers by the state being even harsher on bad standardized test scores...


Ugh. F*cking tests.

 

[Blue Protoman]

Agreed.

 

[Binky]

My history teacher was obsessed with FacTs (with a capital T)


In test, we were not asked to understand/Analise chains of events; we were awarded marks for numbers, dates & trivia (e.g. 1600 horses on 13 August 1743)


And of course, revision homework is the sort you can never finish

 

[Caine]

Not sure what this specific computer science course is all about, but computer science != programming.


Programming is an important skill which ought to be taught as part of any computer science curriculum worth its salt, but it is not the only skill.

 

[Jourdy288]

Yeah, IIRC computer science deals heavily with number theory and such.

 

[Darkknight512]

In my school the computer studies course (programming), is not very good at all, I just take it as an easy mark and take half the class as a spare.

 

[Blue Protoman]

Not sure what this specific computer science course is all about, but computer science != programming.


Programming is an important skill which ought to be taught as part of any computer science curriculum worth its salt, but it is not the only skill.

Yep. I understand. But not many colleges offer degrees in software development. Stony Brook (the place I wanna go to; I got in!) actually puts a lot of focus on projects in most of its CS courses, which is great.


Also, not once has my teacher discussed bits, bytes, or hexadecimal. As far as he's concerned, ints just take up less space than longs.

 

[skeezix]

its called "juking the stats", when it becomes _about_ the stats.


Sadly, its human nature for most people .. 'improve security by x%' translates to 'how is it measured, lets see if we can trick it!' rather than doing what is intended. Highschool, university, jobs, government, you name it, its what is done. And its disgusting.


jeff

 

[Blue Protoman]

Yep. It's been on the rise in education ever since the No Child Left Behind Act.

 

[Blue Protoman]

OK, now this is just embarrassing, and I've just lost all respect for my AP CS teacher.


A classmate of mine, let's call him Alvin, was recently lectured to by my teacher, whom we shall call Mr. Coach. Alvin has been programming ever since he was nine years old, has software for sale on the Android app store, and even got a summer internship at Columbia University! A freaking Ivy! And he's just in his second year of high school.


Well anyway, Alvin didn't do his homework, which was just some silly multiple choice questions. So at the last minute, Alvin randomly circles the answers and hands the worksheet in. Mr. Coach calls up Alvin to talk to him about how "he's not working to his potential," since this isn't the first time Alvin displayed his apathy for our classwork (which still consists of test questions, by the way). So all of Alvin's CS-related accomplishments are meaningless? Alvin told Mr. Coach of what he did, and then Mr. Coach inadvertently defeats his own argument. "Well, that's not the same as the AP. I want you to get a 5."


Help me.

 

[WizardStan]

"Well, that's not the same as the AP. I want you to get a 5."

"If you taught me absolutely nothing at all I would still get a 5. I'm going to intentionally get a zero unless you start adding some value to this otherwise waste of my time." And then rally the other students. VIVA LA REVOLUTION!

 

[Blue Protoman]

I'm one of only four or five students (out of the 20 in the class) who see through the bullshit. Most of the others don't really seem to think that programming is more complex than this.

 

[skeezix]

Don't blame the teacher; the problem is the system.


Heres another (true) story --


University prof, has X students (30?) in a class. He finds out that _half_ of them are cheating, so he calls them on it, one by one into his office; now, he's only paid for Y time for the class.. some for the classes, and a little more for marking and helping out students after lecture, etc. But calling in each of these students to have a chat and try to help them to produce their own work rather than cheating goes bast his whole budget of time, so he's basicly shortchanging other classes or himself ro whatever., Anyway, he's trying to help them out. Their assignments were run through the computer, it produced a list of the originals they copied from and shows what they changed to match, so you can see the degree of cvheating. Really quite impressive/annoying


Anyway, prof pay and bonus/etc is determined by class satisfaction; these guys all vote the prof _down_ because he called them on _their_ cheating, and so his pay gets docked and he's in trouble for his career with the school due to9 low marks.


Its not his fault at all then, that next semester he just lets everyone cheat (and cheating is rampant in uni by the by), and he gets great marks in his review, and thus his pay is okay and goes up.


He did not define the system, he is just anotehr guy trying to pay the bills; he'd love to help his studfents, but if the system is out to kill you for it, you don't. Such is life. You can fight the system, but sometimes you need to pay rent for your kids, too, right?


You learn that life is not all altruistive; everyone is out to live, and sometimes you caqn change the world, too.


jeff


Also, if theres 5 people who give a shit, thats pretty good; most people in any given class don't give a shit; if they're lucky, one person does, on any given topic. Thats normal too.. you think everyone cares about computation? Its old now, no one cares, its not interesting; its like history or algebra.. most don't care; a few get off on it.


Its not about others, its not about how crappy or awesome they are; its about you, learning what you can, using those resources that are available, and doing what you can to get ahead; use the reosurces they have, even if they don't push them on you. Thats what sets you apart.

 

[_wb_]

I'm teaching some courses in CS bachelor and master programs. It is quite remarkable that in general, most students are not interested in (and the curriculum does not really focus on) core CS topics like algorithmics, data structures, compiler construction, computational complexity theory, etc. Instead, they are mostly wasting their time doing stuff "The Industry" seems to like, which is typically called Software Engineering and mostly boils down to drawing neat UML diagrams without ever actually doing any significant coding (unless you consider defining lots of Java classes and implementing some getters and setters to be actual coding).


This is the current state of things in CS curricula at many universities, which is pretty sad in my opinion. Don't even get me started on what they are teaching in high school - it is even sadder.

 

[Blue Protoman]

My university is one of the better ones for CS, thankfully, but yeah it sucks here in high school. The aforementioned Mr. Coach only has a minor in computer science; he's primarily a math teacher. In fact, he didn't even recognize the ternary operator (that is, condition ? if_true : if_false) when I used it on an assignment. What does that tell you?


Oh well. That just makes my degree that much more valuable. Now I just have to figure out how to drown out the nimrods in my class, and I'm set.

 

[TrashyMG]

Well my computer lab in High school was a collection of TRS-80 Model III's and no teacher actually taught anything more than simple typing skills.. This would of been very sad even in the 80's as TRS-80's were a Joke.. However I didn't go to High School in the 80's were talking the mid to late 90's.. so really sad...

 

[Blue Protoman]

Did they advertise that typing class as a CS course?