Yesterday Charles Adler had an interesting segment about technology in the classroom.
As sometimes happens in such discussions, I think the bigger point was missed entirely by the pundits. Here’s the crux of the e-mail I sent to Adler afterwards:
Interesting segment on your show today. If I may, I’d like to broaden the discussion somewhat. The underlying problem is that finding competent teachers in any of the “non-soft” subjects is exceptionally difficult. Whether it be Computer Science or Math or Physics or Chemistry, I have strong reasons to suspect that the competency of most high school teachers in Canada in these areas would range somewhere between “Fair” to “Poor”. When it comes to basic computer skills, I wonder if most teachers would even be qualified for the most rudimentary office job that involved word processing and spreadsheets? I suspect they would not.
Let we forget, computers have had a significant presence in our society since at least 1981 when the first IBM PC was introduced. That’s 30 years ago. The fact that any teacher of any age is now expecting formal training in the basic use of a computer is mind boggling.
I graduated high school at one of the best schools in Vancouver in 1982. We were blessed to have an excellent Physics teacher, some pretty good Math teachers, and a fairly good Computer Science teacher. Fast forward to today … what I’ve been told by my many high school teacher friends is that the competency levels in these areas has dropped significantly. Oh sure, there are undoubtedly some exceptions and the kids learning from those particular teachers are lucky. But what about the majority of kids who are being “taught” by people who really aren’t passionate about their assigned subject area?
Stop for a moment to think about how many kids steer away from going into the hard sciences or engineering because of uninspiring high school teachers. Unless there’s a role model in the form of a parent or an uncle or some adult friend of the parents, it’s unlikely that most Canadian kids will go into the fields where our country most needs them. Ooops, am I even allowed to make that last statement, that Canada needs more people in hard sciences than in soft subjects?! Or is the master plan for this century to generate oodles of wealth in our nation from sociologists and womens studies majors?!?
Just the other day a longtime friend of mine, unsatisfied with the teachers at his son’s school, asked where his son could get some mentoring in the area of Computer Science. Where he’s going to get it from is from me. As an accomplished software developer I’m going to devote some time to teach my “nephew” in this area that he has an interest in. He clearly is not going any help or inspiration from the trained “professionals” at his school.
For the record, I don’t dislike teachers. But I much prefer competence over treating every single person in the teaching profession as a hero.
Update: Useful education links for students & parents alike:
– Khan Academy
– MIT Open Courseware
– Berkeley
h/t Kyla, Ron in Kelowna, Fridge Logic
I agree that basic competency in their subject area is mandatory for HS teachers. Unfortunately, the education colleges and unions don’t. And most school districts don’t care either.
However, I am highly dubious about connecting teacher competency with student interest in science and engineering. I think it is irrelevant. My own HS had s truly bad physics teacher who didn’t understand how rockets worked. He thought the exhaust had to push against something. Despite him, I and several of my classmates pursued highly satisfying careers in engineering.
Whether or not a student pursues a so-called STEM career depends almost entirely upon internal motivations, which are largely race and gender determined. Teachers have only a secondary effect. Please note that almost all STEM programs are abject failures.
Send your friend’s kids to http://www.khanacademy.org
Didn’t know you’re a programmer too Robert. I graduated much later than you did from a high school in BC and you’re right. My computer science teacher was so bad I actually tutored a lot of the students and I gave up taking computer science classes after grade 10 because they were so basic and pointless it was a waste of time. We did have great grade 12 chemistry, physics and math teachers but the junior ones were horrific.
I have tried to start some C++ tutoring in the local school district and have been flatly told “no”. Not a chance. “Try the church.” they said.
Not only are schools not interested, they are actively resisting. Oddly enough the United Church was somewhat open to the possibility, but not very organized.
As far as I have been able to discover, there is NO extra curricular activity for programming or hacking hardware available in the Golden Horseshoe of Ontario, and there are -no- summer programming camps. At all. People I know are going to California and Massachusetts for ID Tech Camp. Expensive.
McMaster University has Venture Camp for engineering, mostly Leggo NXT and etc. Its great for the little kids, but for bigger kids its somewhat limited. Not really what I’d expect from a top-rank Ontario university, but better than nothing.
There is private tutoring available, again expensive and inconvenient but if your kid wants to program, that’s going to be it baby.
So, Ontario hackers and programmers, there’s a big gaping hole in Ontario education and money to be made filling it. Need a job, there’s one for you right there.
I agree an issue is the colleges and unions and also the boards that set the standards for high school teaching qualifications.
With the movement of the baby boom out of corporate work there are thousands of technically trained engineers and scientists who are available to teach hard science.
Kyla, that site is friggin’ AWESOME. Booked marked and emailed, oh yeah!
In my former profession I dealt with and met many teachers. I have also socialized with teachers in groups and individually. Here is what I have observed. Teachers are still in school, they never left it ….
Schools are places where the mentality is Jr. or Sr. high school level. Teachers want to relate to the kids so they are much like them … TEACHERS ARE GENERALLY IMMATURE PEOPLE. They whine a lot, they are dependent types …. they are overly politically correct and most of them cannot wait to retire as young as possible. Many don’t particularly like their job, just the copious amount of holiday time, short work day, pretty good pay, and great benefits.
Did I mention they are very cheap people? It will be you picking up the tab if you have lunch … or you will sit there while the teacher figures out the bill and the tip to the last penny. Yet they are among the poorest money managers you will meet.
These are not the people I want influencing my children. I know there are some good ones, but they are few and it’s hard to know who’s who.
I am convinced that most teachers choose teaching because it looked comfy, cozy, steady, easy, and then there’s summer eh? I know that because over the years I have asked dozens of them. Many don’t even have a particular area of expertise. Just a BA and teachers training.
I would never put a kid in the public education system these days. There are better options.
Abe, you forgot to mention stupid. A lot of teachers just aren’t very bright. (Some teachers are wonderful of course yadda yadda.)
About 50% of my elementary teachers were trash.
Only about 30% of highschool teachers were.
The science guys were quite good, but the computer teacher was our moronic football coach. I dropped the class and enjoyed the spare.
My kids have been using Khan Academy for about a year now, and the Singapore math method for several years.
The state of public education in BC is very poor compared to what we have experienced in Asia. And now that UBC has initiated its new teacher training program that will bring the issues of social justice into math and science classes one can expect it will get a lot worse before it gets better.
Bang on about the right teacher being an inspiration and the wrong one being an anchor.
We graduated the same year Robert. I graduated with grade 11 math, not 12. The reason? Two fold. In grade 10 I had a fantastic math teacher who obviously loved what it was he was doing and KNEW what he was doing. I did great in his class. Grade 11 came along and I got a teacher with about 30 seconds left to her retirement. I think my final mark that year was around 35. I took grade 11 math again in my senior year and got the same teacher I had in grade 10. Passed that year easily because he made it make sense AND made it fun.
The second reason I blew it in grade 11? All my fault. Too much partying, not enough schooling. Failing math that year cured me of that.
Thirty years later and I have forgotten her name, but Mr Cross (I still call him that….LOL) is fresh in my mind. Turns out he lives only four houses away, see him fairly regularly and he is still teaching high school math.
I went on to earn two diplomas in highly technical trades requiring mass amounts of calculus, stats etc. The kid has to be willing to learn, but the teacher has to be there to pick out the ones that “get it”.
And Kyla, the Khan Acadamey is fantastic! We use at my work for helping mature students get up to speed. I have used it on a couple of occassions to brush up on a couple points that were 30 years in the past.
Robert
I called-in late in that segment yesterday.
First, I agree with your premise that the teachers teaching our kids in the public system are (generally speaking) fair or poor when it comes to abilities, knowledge, motivation and skills.
That said, I commented on another issue, and that’s the issue of the necessity of “learning how to learn” with respect to software in the 21st century. For people like you and I, who are confronted with new types of software applications on a daily/weekly basis; we’ve developed the skill-set to adapt to the every changing environment. This is not the case for the majority of Gen Xers and folks older than that; therefore, there is a major gap in the knowledge base and aptitude for people in these generations; hence, teachers. It took me years to become proficient in software applications, so I see no reason why the aforementioned instructors would be suitable to instruct in these matters. I believe the solution to this, and perhaps the entire “hard science” aspect of education is to introduce experts from the work force to instruct these classes; similar to the college set-up. For example… a Professional Engineer teaching applied physics classes, not some dolt with a BA in science. I’m sure that will go over well eh?
IMO this “gap” will not persist as the newer generation of people are much more savvy and capable. The fact is… kids are self-teaching themselves how to use technology, and or being mentored as you suggest. Like all things in life, those who are motivated to learn will learn.
Finally, you cannot depend on the school system to teach your kids how to learn to use technology for the reasons you’ve stated; but, neither can you depend on the school system to teach your kids how to read, write or add. It’s my well thought-out view that it’s the parent’s responsibility to ensure their kids are educated properly. I view the public school system as a supplement to the education we provide at home. In other words, we teach them what we think is important, and correct the “mistakes” they’re being taught in school.
Ouch, Abe (11:14 am). I’m afraid that I agree to some extent with what you say. I don’t think it was always like that. When I first started teaching, the staff consisted of quite a few who had a military background, and some who had made a living in the trades and other careers and switched to teaching for some of the reasons you mentioned (holidays, reasonable salary, etc.) Some came from tough backgrounds and “escaped” into an accessible career. Many had some pride in the work they did and some devotion to it. (There were also the sadists, the incompetent, abusers of children, the drunks and the lazy ones.) But because the staff consisted of a lot of people who had been successful at things other than teaching, or who had experienced the poverty and difficulties of a tough childhood, it was not so easy to feed them the kind of politically correct, social engineering nonsense that naive people absorb without question.
I expect that many young people who graduate from most faculties today are immature, and have absorbed all sorts of politically correct ideology. A few years of knocking about the real world will deal with most of that. You are correct though, that education offers a protected environment where it is not necessary to “grow-up”, where many can continue to be perpetual children until they retire (and they go on being children until they die). It’s too bad because I think many mean well and sincerely believe they are doing good. Often it’s the mavericks that make the best teachers–and often they are the ones shunned by the admin and other teachers for not “toeing the line” and for actually being more successful than their more correct counterparts.
Which bring me to a conclusion. Everyone who wants to be a teacher should have, even if only briefly, done something else. Volunteered. Worked at something physically hard. Studied something other than the usual pap that is dispensed at the College of Education. Grown a garden…. I don’t care what. Just something “else”.
Black Mamba, I hear you …. I suppose If teachers were bright people, would they be teachers at all? At least at the high school level. How boring passing on that level of information year after year.
Right now in BC the teachers are refusing to do any extra curricular work such as concerts, sports, music, or even prepare report cards etc. because they aren’t getting their raises and the contract negotiations are taking too long. Childish or what? Their Nanny Union is taking care of them.
And at the end of the day math is still hard. Actually it isn’t but there are right and wrong answers. That’s what is hard. And operative is the old adage “If you can’t count it you can’t manage it”. Applies to your whole life.
Teaching is a sinecure. When a friend’s daughter learned she got a full-time teaching position, her first reaction was to exclaim “Wa-hoo! I am set for life!” She is actually a very good teacher, so it is instructive that this was the primordial response of one the better teachers.
My son’s high school started a new magnet program this year called the Innovate Program, which has a science and technology focus for high achievers. The teachers involved in the program are really trying to push the envelope with the Ministry of Ed staff in Toronto. The students get wi-fi access and are experimenting with online tools and cool tech toys in the classroom. The teacher for the computer programming courses has already made class visits and is encouraging the grade 9 students to pursue that option in high school. There are lots of opportunities for class trips and partnerships here in Waterloo Region with the tech community. Hopefully this can be expanded to other school boards in the near future.
All you need to know to know 🙂
http://www.khanacademy.org/
Ahh, the stories I could tell. I used to work tech support in schools and what I saw would make a grown man cry. The ‘tech’ teachers were awful. I remember fixing a problem in a lab where the teacher had let his students rewire things. They had 5 hubs in series. If you don’t know, that’s a very bad idea with hubs. The students literally run the place because the teachers cannot.
Worse were the teachers who would string 50 meters of cable around a classroom so they could out their desk where they wanted it as opposed to where the jack was. Then they’d wonder why their computer was so ‘flaky’.
On the subject of teacher competence, my sister-in-law is a teacher who studied English. Now she teaches grade 10 math. She tells me it is hard to keep ahead of the kids. I’m not joking. That is the level of competence in the science wing.
The underlying problem? Tenure.
Good for you Robert. This lack of competent teachers and people in the hard sciences and engineering will come back to bite us economically domestically and internationally in the future.
We need truck drivers and machine operators and need even more so the people that create these tools. We do not need more social workers screwing up society.
For the record, I do dislike teachers.
Yeah, I have a chronic temperamental problem with authority.
But also? Having to correct my teachers’ grammatical and factual errors throughout high school got tired after a while. One English teacher insisted that “irregardless” was a word — a battle that ended up in the principal’s office.
ron in kelowna; nuff said! Cheers;
Along these lines, George Jonas in the Nat. Post a few days ago compares the purposes of psychologists and flight instructors. The former just wants to make you feel good, shifting blame if necessary while the latter is only concerned that you get things right. He concludes his column by suggesting that we’re in an age where most of society has been taught by psychologist-types and therefore lacks the critical self-assessment skills necessary to right whatever ails us.
It isn’t the teachers I dislike so much as the system that forces you to accept incompetent teachers. I do despise activists posing as teachers.
It is that progressive system that needs to be dismantled.
If I knew then what I know now about the taxpayer funded school curriculums I would have lived in a cardboard box to pay for private schooling.
I would like to see the emergence of an internet based “home school” system so we can keep the kids at home safe from the “fisting-kit” and “socialism is super” courses that are now mandatory.
My basic discipline was artillery…
In the 60’s the whiz-bang fire-control systems made their first appearance. It was at first just landing naval practice on land with the use of anolog computers….
Much of the practice had not evolved much since the Napoleanic era.
Fires were set up using tables etc.
Then the digital systems arrived with GPS. GPS made precise compass headings possible….you could actually have all the tubes, in a battery, even a battalion, pointing at the same spot. Radar could track out-going and incoming….speeding adjustment and reaction time for counter battery….as long as nothing malfunctioned…….
That is what alarmed some of us and we instituted training using the traditional methodology.
The first discovery was that the electronic setup performed better with that grounding. Better operators….
I got reports back from the Gulf II event. The fire control systems did experience partial and total failures but the fires were made on time and target. The partially failed systems speeded the traditional laying by speeding SOME of the inputs. Apparently the GPS was fairly robust.
Training SOP is now to disable some or all electronic features…..without warning….no stand down allowed.
As an old gunny said “We still dig holes the same old way.”
As far as education…when a kid reports the history teachers’ first statement was…”I know this is boring but we have to do it anyway.” Houston, we have a problem.
Bear in mind that every field of endeaver has an institutional attitude problem…always has and probably always will.
The classic example is the final decoding of the Summarian text. It was not pictographs but a phonetic script.
IOW we have been teaching reading for millenia by means of phonics….then some twit having learned how to read decided to skip directly to word recognition….and produced a generation of illiterates. “We do still dig holes the same old way.”
Thank you for the Khan Academy link. I passed the link on to my children.
I had some great teachers in public and high school and some bummers. The good ones were enthusiastic about their subject and many had a knack of passing their enthusiasm on to their students.
“We do still dig holes the same old way.” So true, just the tools change.
Here in Ontario Teacher Unions are part of the Liberal evil axis. They can do no wrong.
Is 10 years experience worth 100+ grand per year?
It is in Ontario…competency be damned.
I am the proud parent of an Ontario High School teacher.
However, the hammerlock their Unions have on Ontario is seckening.
My grade 7 came home and told me his teacher was using Mel Gibson’s “The Patriot” to teach them about the American Revolutionary War. It’s a nice film, but it’s not a documentary. I had to set him straight on a few facts. Needless to say, I gave him the caveat that whatever the teacher spouted just go with the flow…also that the “bad guys” in the film became the UEL, which included many mercenary units and British soldiers, who settled Ontario, parts of Quebec and New Brunswick.
A friend of my son commented that when she was in teacher’s college, there were only three of them that had graduated with a math or science degrees. The rest were artsies who vociferously shunned the three. The artsies of course went on to teach their students what passes for an education today.
The educational establishment is reacting against upstarts like Khan Academy using regulation. An example is the new ‘Gainful Employment’ regs that the US Department of Education issued last year.
For-profit schools now have to jump through a whole bunch of hoops to keep their programs eligible: loan default rates, debt-to-income ratios, etc. Non-profit and public colleges are exempt.
http://www.ed.gov/news/press-releases/gainful-employment-regulations
Sal Khan is my hero.
MIT also has a lot of their courseware – exams and notes – online for free:
http://ocw.mit.edu/index.htm
So does Berkeley: http://webcast.berkeley.edu/series.html#c,s
I really don’t have a lot of sympathy for these “my kid is failing math because because my teacher is disinterested and uninspiring” stories. At some point you just have to sit down, read the textbook, do the problem set a dozen times, and learn the material. There is a cornucopia of free classes, tutorials, and tests out on the web. Library cards are cheap. So is the time of immigrant East European math PhD candidates, if you really want someone to hold your hand.
In the sciences bad teachers are a problem only for the chemsitry/biology lab component — where you do need real life demonstrations and feedback. And the MIT website does have videos for that up to a certain level.
“irregardless” was a word
Kathy
To you and John Gormley’s dismay “irregardless” has now officially been entered into the English language because of it’s frequency of use.
No longer can you, I or John snub those dolts who don’t can’t speak English right.
If you can’t beat’em, join’em!
I can tell you right off that students learn next to nothing useful about computers. My high-school age niece and nephew have been using computers in the classroom every day since elementary school, but they both are two-finger typists and are incapable of more than 30 words a minute with any kind of accuracy. My nephew’s training in “programming” involved a self-directed segment where he experimented with creating a 3D scene in Alice. He has no concept of logical constructs or basic scripting – and yet he is supposed to have been in the “technical” stream for the past two years of high school. We got a better background back when I went to school when we had to learn to type on horrible old manual Underwood typewriters before we could take the computer elective – which generally involved building primitive data structures in Pascal. High school teachers use computers as an entertainment appliance at home, and that’s basically all that students are able to use them for.
I don’t consider a slow, painful, laboured effort at typing out a 250 word essay in Word any kind of expression of computer literacy.
Pretty close to that here. Tried to get on as a temp, teaching CS to high schoolers in my spare time. No go – seems I lacked the required certs in “Early Childhood Development”, etc.
So now I’m mentoring the kids of some friends, at home.
Progressive’s poison everything they touch, they ruined healthcare via controlling our hospitals with healthcare boards and staffing them with activists. Now they’re taking education down the same path, want your children educated take down the school boards’ staffed with gay BLT obsessed social justice activists.
My neighbour, now dead, was a math and computer science teacher at his funeral one of his former students stood up and recited what my neighbour said to new students every year: Hello I’m Mr. So-so and I am here to teach you and if you want to learn you will learn from me. However; if you are not here to learn, well that’s not a problem I am not here to babysit you feel free to leave and stay away.
Wow, thank you all for the EXCELLENT comments! The one that made me cringe the most was learning that my province of BC will be introducing “social justice” issues into the hard sciences. That is beyond scary! You know, I’ve long felt that most Canadians reside in a bubble of ignorance wrt taking for granted how good we have it here and that things will not stay this good if we don’t keep on creating new companies & industries that deliver things the rest of the world wants. Within this bubble there clearly is another bubble labeled “Canada’s Education System”. It is even more impenetrable than the outer one!
Turns out Charles Adler kindly invited me to be a guest on his show today. Unfortunately I was tied up with work and couldn’t join him. But I believe my letter will be read on his show.
As for what Abe Froman said, I deliberately chose not to go there but I can’t say I disagree with him. In high school we had one English teacher who was a drunk. She did NOT perform her duties at all competently. After one Grade 11 class walked out and went to the principal’s office to complain about her, even that wasn’t enough to fire her. That was in 1981. I imagine things are even more difficult now.
Is it any wonder why parents of means send their children to good private schools?
Ideas to Improve Things:
– Eliminate the tenure
– Don’t allow any new teachers to start until they’ve had at least 5 years work experience of another career under their belt
– Allow external experts to come into the schools on a regular basis
– Permit teachers & the principals to exert some discipline over the children
These ideas would be a good start to correct many, many decades of not putting the students first & foremost.
When I took pharmacy 50 years ago the general concensus was that people went into teaching because they couldn’t do anything else.
Looks like nothing has changed.
What Abe Froman said up top! That is my experience with teachers as well.
It would be difficult to find a better model of socialistic central planning than public (government) schooling. Public schooling entails a central board of elected or appointed government planners, either at a national, state, or local level. Attendance is mandated by compulsory-attendance laws. Government-approved schoolteachers, using government-approved textbooks, following government-approved curricula, pour government-approved information into the heads of government-approved children. School funding is through coercion; everyone — even those who don’t have children — has his money seized by government tax collectors in order to finance the public-school bureaucracy.
The results are as predictable as they are with every other socialistic scheme: an extremely shoddy product. And this is true whether one examines public schooling in Cuba, North Korea, China, or the United States. (Yes, they do have public schooling in all of those countries.) In fact, it is virtually impossible to find anyone, including President Clinton (who refused to subject his only child to the abuse of public schooling), who defends the dismal results. Perhaps the most telling evidence of public-school failure is the fact that an ever-growing number of public schoolteachers are sending their own children elsewhere.
What is the solution to all of this socialistic mess? A separation of school and state, in the manner that our ancestors separated church and state. Repeal compulsory-attendance laws. Repeal school taxes. Get rid of the school buildings. Fire the school personnel. In short, end all governmental involvement with education. Let the free market reign in the field of learning!
by Jacob G. Hornberger; http://www.fff.org/freedom/0998a.asp
Many Teachers go through 4 – 6 years of university education and when they finally step in front of 25 kids they find out they are not cut out for teaching. They do not have the innate ability to lead a class through a single lesson, let alone through a day and a school year. I know others with a high school education who could teach and motivate better than 3/4 of the teachers in the system.
Teachers are over trained. If they can’t cut it as a teacher, they have nothing to fall back on. At best they end up retraining for something else or at worst they remain teaching, becoming the bad teachers we all tell stories about.
There is a serious lack of committed professional teachers in the lower grades of the BC Education system. In 5 of first 7 years of my sons schooling he had split teachers. Split teachers being one teacher for two days and another for three days each week (or some similar scenario). Nearly all the teachers who took advantage of this sweet part-time-work / full-time-benefits teaching gig were young mothers who had first priorities outside of the classroom. Nothing against young mothers making ends meet but committed professional teachers they were not.
Having said that my children have also been blessed to work with some of the most professional, committed, and passionate public school teachers in the province. Overall I am happy with their education, but I know it could have been so much more. I feel bad for those many students who may never know what it means to get “fired up” by one of the few remaining great teachers.
I don’t post often, but it seems when the topic is education I am compelled to speak and give my parent perspective.
In BC right now some teachers are in a great personal conflict since the BC Teachers Fed (BCTF) has ordered no extra curricular activities. ( I have talked to more than one who would in trouble if the union knew of the extra effort they were still putting in).
It is just those great committed and passionate teachers who coach a team, monitor lunch time clubs, arrange participation in physics and math contests or arrange field trips. They know that leadership is part of their teaching role, but they are compelled, under threat of their career, to remain silent and sit on the sidelines.
The only solution I can see is to give the education system back to people of this province and allowing the professional committed teachers to lead it by making BCTF membership optional (Ok. I can dream, can’t I).
I would like to see Christy Clark call an election over this. Call the election to take the province back from the unions and their NDP puppets. The unions are going to spend millions to oust her anyway. Why not just fight them directly. Ignore the NDP as much as possible. That would be fun to watch. (sorry to get so far off topic)
Kill public Unions. There day is well past done, but for harm now. Its the only realistic solution. For the teachers as well. At least those who care about real education versus social propaganda.
If your computer illiterate these days you might as well not know how to read.
Plus the fact if your not clued in cheating becomes the norm.
Robert @3:14 – ‘…BC will be introducing “social justice” issues into the hard sciences.’
What a great idea!
I know I am coming to the comment thread late, but hope some of you will read my comments. I encouraged my daughter to go into the International Baccalaureate program at Henry Wise Wood High School here in Calgary. One of the best things I have done – she graduated with a Math/Science certificate and breezed through first year Science at UBC. Second year Physics was extremely tough for her and she decided to go into Computer Science. She is loving it and is currently on her Co-op Work placement with Ontario Power at the Darlington Nuclear Station. I tease her that she will “glow in the dark”. Of course, I am a “proud mama”. Can not say enough good things about the IB program. Her teachers were very passionate about what they taught and passed that passion on to their students.
Johanne, it is good to read that your daughter thrived in an IB program. I would not be quick to generalize, however. I have spoken to many parents who are very dissatisfied with IB, particular with respect to math/sciences. My view is that no program is any better than the particular teachers that run it.
Just an FYI regarding the MIT Open Courseware…
Many of the courses DO specify an accompanying textbook, which appears to be quite expensive at first blush. I’ve found that they can usually be picked up used on Amazon from $5-10 with another $3-4 for shipping, so definitely don’t pay $90 for a brand new text.
The only way to learn about computers is to play with them. I’ve noticed that in schools nowadays hacking is discouraged and has a bad reputation. I started off as a hardware hacker in the late 1960’s and then got into software hacking when I got access to the university of Calgary computer center while in high school. Skipped as many classes as possible to hang out at UofC and program. The nice thing about high school in Alberta at that time was that ones final mark in a course was entirely dependent on how one did on the provincial exams and more than one of my grade 12 teachers told me that if it was up to them, they’d give me a failing grade in their course. As it was I aced the final exams despite spending my time writing programs in most of the classes I did attend and jotting down the rare relevant point made by the teacher.
Compared to teachers of today, I’d have to say that my chemistry, physics and math teachers knew their stuff but that the classes just moved at a glacial pace. It didn’t help me when I told more than one teacher that school was the greatest impediment to my education that I’d encountered. My summers were spent reading math and physics books and programming and that was when I learned the most.
What really got me started on self learning was my parents as my father was an engineer and he was very much into learning things on his own. All of the major things he accomplished he did through self-study. Once I’d learned how to read, there was little need for any formal instruction. My having a major problem with authority didn’t help matters as I wasn’t allowed to skip grades in elementary school because “I was too immature”. That was before the days of the DSM and the “oppositional defiant disorder”.
What is really needed now is to have people with real-world experience in technical subjects being available as resources for students. Of course none of these people would be allowed to teach in the current statist bureaucratic environment as they don’t have education degrees. I’ve had years of experience teaching medical students, still do so, but have refused to accept the UBC clinical faculty position that we’re now being pressured to apply for.
The best computer course would be for students to start with a pile of old machines, learn the hardware, and dive in and get their hands dirty. I recommend old machines as the “lets play around with things” approach means a lot of fried boards as people learn from their mistakes. I’m a firm believer in starting computer programming from the hardware level up and believe that every programmer should be able to write code in assembly language for at least one CPU type and preferably have some experience with hardware hacking. A lot of the idiotic errors I’ve seen in medical software are as the result of programmers who haven’t a clue about the underlying hardware that is causing their programs to fail. Hardware independent software is possible now given that the average laptop has the processing power of a supercomputer from the initial days of my hacking career. To ignore what’s underneath the safe sandbox is the equivalent of a doctor attempting to practice medicine without any knowledge of basic physiology.