[Haskell & FP in Education] Welcome and introductions

Wed Dec 19 15:45:56 UTC 2018

I think one of the problems in introducing CS education in K-12 is the lack of a clear widespread rationale for it.

This question is not unique for this list, but it still matters here. There are different goals we may be pursuing,

such as:

- To introduce "fun activities" so that students get less bored in school

- To replace "old-fashioned" core subjects that are less relevant than computing nowadays

- To teach students "real-world skills" so that they can get better jobs

- To help students learn other subjects because "code makes these subjects easier to understand"

- To do something now, because "we think it will become useful in their future", even if we don't know exactly how

- To help children "understand our technological world" better

I am partially paraphrasing Simon Peyton Jones'  excellent talk:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-xgWLYQc4g

Then, another problem is that to make way for it, something else needs to go, and it is not clear what could be

taken away, especially in high school. Should we have one more core subject and less art and PE?

Finally, depending on what the goal is, we have the question of how to accomplish that goal. In particular, what

exactly should be taught to the children, what the expectations are and how we will assess whether they

learned enough.

My personal interest lies in the intersection of coding and math, and the potential of code to illustrate math concepts

and help develop a mathematical intuition. At the same time, I see mathematics as a very fertile ground for all kinds

of computational problems, with an endless supply of interesting questions at all levels of difficulty. In this context,

a pure functional language is the optimal choice, because it helps the students stay focused on the objectives without

getting distracted (or, rather, seduced, as SPJ mentions) by the infinite possibilities of tweaking the look and feel forever.

While my take is probably shared (at least partially) by most people in this list, it is a minority view in the current CS education community.

The challenge is how to make a case for our goal within the current environment, where the goal seems to be just "learning Python"

for the sake of learning Python (or JavaScript) with no further thoughts beyond that.

Fernando

________________________________
From: Education <education-bounces at haskell.org> on behalf of Anand, Christopher <anandc at mcmaster.ca>
Sent: Wednesday, December 19, 2018 8:07:30 AM
To: Johannes Waldmann
Cc: education at haskell.org
Subject: Re: [Haskell & FP in Education] Welcome and introductions

Johannes,

Just because the introduction of calculators was a failure does not mean teaching programming will be a failure.

The biggest failure is in the teaching of the scientific method to education officials. They blithely introduce new programs without testing them.

I am happy to say that one of our school boards asked us to help measure the impact of teaching FP on math skills in their highest-needs schools. We measured a positive impact despite working against the start of summer with very distracted students.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/328518021_Graphics_Programming_in_Elm_Develops_Math_Knowledge_Social_Cohesion
[https://i1.rgstatic.net/publication/328518021_Graphics_Programming_in_Elm_Develops_Math_Knowledge_Social_Cohesion/links/5bd230bc4585150b2b875e97/largepreview.png]<https://www.researchgate.net/publication/328518021_Graphics_Programming_in_Elm_Develops_Math_Knowledge_Social_Cohesion>

(PDF) Graphics Programming in Elm Develops Math Knowledge & Social Cohesion<https://www.researchgate.net/publication/328518021_Graphics_Programming_in_Elm_Develops_Math_Knowledge_Social_Cohesion>
www.researchgate.net
PDF | At McMaster University, we have developed a framework for teaching computer science, including curricula and tools (iPad apps: Image 2 Bits and ElmJr; an open-source library GraphicSVG; and a web-based development environment). ElmJr is a projectional editor for Elm, with...

The Bootstrap project has shown even better results with middle school algebra.

While I also lament the demise of geometry, I think there is really fun software to support that. Sadly it is largely ignored.

Finally, your bias (which many of us share) in looking at the impact of changes on your future students ignores the imperative for democracies to educate all of their citizens so that they can meaningfully contribute to decision making.

Fortunately, I think we can include digital literacy and even programming in the curriculum while also strengthening mathematics education, if we do it right.

Christopher Anand

On Dec 18, 2018, at 6:09 PM, Johannes Waldmann <johannes.waldmann at htwk-leipzig.de<mailto:johannes.waldmann at htwk-leipzig.de>> wrote:

Hi Chris, and others.

Since you asked for it ... I have written an opinion piece

https://www.imn.htwk-leipzig.de/~waldmann/etc/prog-edu/

For professional education: yes, I use Haskell by all means.
Of course, it's complemented by a few more colleagues using Haskell,
and even more colleagues not using it, so it's a fine balance overall.
I am happy to discuss detail, swap exercises and exam questions, etc.

For pre-university education (that's what you mean
by "general" education? At least, it's included?): Don't.

To teach programming early (Haskell or not) is, at best,
misguided, and often actually harmful:

   * It tends to detract resources from where they are really needed,
     namely, teaching fundamentals.

   * It tends to hide the fact that software platforms used in
     teaching programming tend to use, or to be,
     mechanisms of surveillance capitalism.

Best regards, Johannes.
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