[OT?] Bad news???

[Richmond]

On 24/01/14 21:31, Richard Gaskin wrote:
> Richmond wrote:
>
>> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-25851739#threeG
>>
>> Why the hell are they teaching Primary kids Python?
>>
>> This is like teaching kids to drive drag-racers before they
>> can walk.
>
> I agree, but I see this as good news, taking a longer-term view:
>
> It's a very positive sign that programming is being taken seriously as 
> a key part of the curriculum at all.  Without this first step there 
> would be no opportunity for LiveCode or anything else at all.
>
> That these educators would choose a well-known open source language 
> isn't surprising.
>
> Over time, LiveCode will also become as popular as Python, and as its 
> audience grows it'll become increasingly self-evident that it's a far 
> better choice for teaching introductory programming.
>
> LiveCode's only been open source for less than a year, so it's really 
> only been a viable option for orgs who need FOSS tools for a fairly 
> short time.
>
> This will inevitably change.  The benefits of LiveCode are obvious 
> once folks have the opportunity to try it.

The problem is not with Livecode as such.

The problem lies with words such as "passivity", "laziness", "inertia" 
and so on.

Your 'danger word', Richard, is "opportunity"; I don't think the English 
Education Ministry is going to let anybody have any opportunity at all;
somebody "up there" has taken a decision, and they will stick with that.

As the BBC article pointed out, the vast majority of teachers (pace John 
Dixon's earlier message) who will become the people who are expected
to teach kids programming are those who have been doing a big dumb-down 
for the last however long passing off writing a letter to Granny in 
Microsoft Office as the B-and-end-all of computer stuff. These 
stultified people will have to get up off their comfy bottoms and make, 
heaven forfend, an effort to learn Python (which is something I, as a 
programmer with a reasonable track record of programming, wouldn't
really want to do), and having done that will do their best to avoid 
having to learn another one (e.g. Livecode).

Richard; Thee and Me may get our juices flowing by getting all excited 
about learning new programming languages, approaches, and
techniques. However, if you have ever taken time to hang around Primary 
teachers for any length of time you will find that people like
us in the teaching profession are extremely rare birds.

About 9 years ago I took my agent-led interface for Livecode to a 
Primary school in Fife to trial the prototype with Primary teachers.
The only reason any turned up (after all, it was outside working hours) 
was because the headmistress (and wonderful woman with a vision)
had three-line-whipped them. The reluctance on their part to take any 
risks and/or try anything original was majorly depressing.

As one teacher said, "Why should I bother to learn to use your thing to 
make programs for Content Delivery and Reinforcement when the
children are just fine without them?"

If my Primary teachers (at a wild, experimental school in England in the 
wild, experimental 1960s) had had that attitude we never would have
been dissecting dead sheep on Saturday mornings, painting camels on the 
roof of the building, or any of the other things that have enriched
my life ever since.

---------------

Just to Bulgarianise for a moment:

Here kids have to learn Turbo PASCAL when they are 14-15. Forwhy? 
Because somebody wrote a crushingly boring text-book a million years 
ago, and the Ministry of Ed. knows full well that all the fossilised 
teachers who have learnt to go through the motions (not a single child a 
year later can remember or do anything with PASCAL) will be bu**ered if 
they're going to make the effort to learn anything else.

--------------

>
> That will happen.
>
> Patience, Grasshopper....

Real computer work has been in the wilderness in England and Scotland 
for about 30 years: i.e. a generation.

I would have thought the time for patience was past.

Richmond [ alias the Ravening Locust ].