It’s about 2:45 AM as I start this post. Why am I writing at this hour? Well, it’s because some things are keeping my mind from shutting down and maybe by writing them out I can get back to sleep. Basically there are a bunch of questions about teaching computer science that have no good answers. Certainly none that everyone can agree on.
Let’s start with “what should CS teachers know (in CS concepts)?” The answer really depends on a second question – what should students know about CS when they finish K-12?
The answers to that second question range from more than we could possibly teach in the time available to eh, not much. How one looks at that question depends on what is the goal of teaching CS in K-12?
I think most agree that we're not trying to make everyone a CS professional or even a CS major. Can we? What then in the goal?
We, as a community, have some projects going on to provide some guidance but I wonder if we’re going about it correctly. Now the CS Standards from CSTA, ISTE, and others are being revised again. We have the CS Framework that came out several years ago. Attempts are being made to bring input in from wide swaths of the CS teacher community. I wonder if we’re ready for it.
Now, Alfred, the Framework came out in 2016, we’ve been doing this standards stuff for close to ten years. And discussing it for far longer. What do you mean are we ready for it? Just that. We don’t have answers to the important questions. Yes, the Framework and standards are an attempt to answer the question of what should K-12 students know and when. I’m just not convinced that they are the right answers.
They are popular answers. And they may be close to the right answers. Maybe the best we can do right now. I’m just not convinced that they are the end all and be all that many want them to be.
We’re just not talking enough.They want be 150 or even 200 people involved (in theory) but most of the conversations are happening in private meetings with reports being presented and put open to comments. That’s probably all that is practical but that doesn’t mean it is enough.
There are too many teachers still who don’t even know these documents and their writing processes even exist. There are too many teachers who are not members of CSTA or who are but who don’t pay much attention because they are to busy being to hard at work trying the teach and have some work/life balance. We’re getting standards written by the activists – the people who know a lot and who often know more than the average CS teacher. Many of them have specific goals in mind before starting the process of writing standards. Oh, really we all have goals in mind before starting. That’s why we volunteer.
So we get highly motivated people. Great. We start with an end goal in mind. Maybe great. And who ever is in charge of selecting the prime movers selects people with their shared vision. What? Tell me it isn’t so! Can’t do that. It’s human nature. It’s even done with the best intentions.
Yes, I know there are “public feedback periods, several in-person feedback sessions, virtual focus groups, and strategic interviews” going on. Not impressed. Public feedback is easily ignored and the rest involve hand selected individuals. How many of those selected were known or expected to be dissidents? Without strong push back and resistance weak ideas can prevail.
I don’t have good answers to any of this. If I did I would be writing them up and not laying awake in bed stressing over stuff like this. What I would like to see is a lot more conversation in a lot more places. I see some on Facebook but not nearly enough. Blogging is just about dead. Many of my favorite bloggers are retired and not blogging. Or blogging a lot less (like me). Comments just don’t happen like they used to. Maybe CSTA chapters could have discussion sessions although disseminating the various points widely is difficult, if even possible.
As I said earlier, maybe we’re doing the best we can. I just wonder if it is enough.
