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myrmepropagandistfuturebird@sauropods.win
Oct 27, 2026, 9:57 AM
@gordoooo_z
And of course you need to teach students what computers are, their intrinsic mathematical nature, their potential and limitations.
Then add to all of this "online safety education" which is obviously important but can feel like something tacked on at the end... when it ought to grow more naturally out of the greater curriculum philosophy.
It can be very exciting and sometimes a little thankless to be a CS educator.
What could be a more important and neglected job?
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Replies

myrmepropagandistfuturebird@sauropods.win
Oct 27, 2026, 9:58 AM
@gordoooo_z
I'm glad that I also teach math, since in mathematics our curriculum is ancient and its goals are clear and well debated, in math, the challenge is relevance, in CS we drown in too much relevance.
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myrmepropagandistfuturebird@sauropods.win
Oct 27, 2026, 10:01 AM
@gordoooo_z
I assume that some day my students will make choices about what software we use, what networks we have and the rules that govern all of these things.
All of these things are designed and will be in their power.
I'm currently thinking about how to teach them about surveillance, its vast utility and potential for abuse.
My overall goal is that they never assume that these systems and software just exist and cannot be changed.
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myrmepropagandistfuturebird@sauropods.win
Oct 27, 2026, 10:02 AM
@gordoooo_z
This can be difficult when a fair number of the well meaning adults I encounter don't really understand these things about computers or computer systems.
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myrmepropagandistfuturebird@sauropods.win
Oct 27, 2026, 10:05 AM
@gordoooo_z
"Training young people for the jobs of the future!"
no no no no no we can do a lot more than that.
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myrmepropagandistfuturebird@sauropods.win
Oct 27, 2026, 10:15 AM
@gordoooo_z
From time to time people get the idea that CS should be "integrated into the rest of the curriculum" rather than being its own subject.
You could take this integration approach with any subject, with math, or English... but 100s of years of experience show that this doesn't work very well unless you have an exceptional team of teachers with ample extra time to make such integration possible. Breaking education into subjects is a matter of effectiveness and efficiency.
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myrmepropagandistfuturebird@sauropods.win
Oct 27, 2026, 10:18 AM
@gordoooo_z
Could you have an integrated project where a student learns about history, applies concepts from statistics and math and CS to analyze data, writes with expressive clarity about these topics and presents the work to their peers? Yes, and sometimes we can do that.
But you might not get the depth of understanding and technical competence possible if you have subjects.
Very few people will learn how a "for loop" works ... naturally.
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Jessie Kirkthejessiekirk@ohai.social
Oct 27, 2026, 10:17 AM
@futurebird Aye. At school, our IT classes were literally just "how to use Microsoft Office". The final thing we did was mail merge using Excel and Word. I learned jack about how computers work.
@gordoooo_z
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myrmepropagandistfuturebird@sauropods.win
Oct 27, 2026, 10:19 AM
@thejessiekirk @gordoooo_z
To be fair... mail merges are kind of delightful in their own way. It's a kind of programing and very powerful.
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myrmepropagandistfuturebird@sauropods.win
Oct 27, 2026, 10:21 AM
@thejessiekirk @gordoooo_z
My school had no real CS curriculum. But students who were interested could learn a great deal if we wanted to. I don't think that really cuts it anymore.
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