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Google Education

Google: Poor Kids Might Grasp Macbeth If They Code Like Kids At $43K/Yr School 144

Posted by Soulskill from the fair-is-foul-and-foul-is-fair dept.
theodp writes: While the CollegeBoard warned against drawing a causal link between learning computer science and improved learning in other subjects, Google has no such qualms. "CS is much more than computer programming and coding," writes the Google for Education blog in a post announcing a new gateway for Google's CS education opportunities. "It's a gateway to creativity and innovation not just in technology but in fields as diverse as music, sports, the arts, and health." Among the technology showcased at the gateway is Pencil Code, a programming tool for beginning coders that Google boasts is already helping kids attending the $43K-a-year Beaver Country Day School to brush up their Shakespeare by having students create interactive chatbots that play the part of characters like Lady Macbeth. "After completing this code I knew more and understood more of the play," begins one student's featured testimonial. "It allowed me to interpret Macbeth in a new way that I had never thought of before. I really enjoyed using Pencil Code because it made coding simpler for me and helped me try something new." Elsewhere on its CS gateway, Google laments that a new Google-Gallup Research Study shows that 'Blacks and low-income are less likely to have access' to such computer science opportunities.
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Google: Poor Kids Might Grasp Macbeth If They Code Like Kids At $43K/Yr School More

Google: Poor Kids Might Grasp Macbeth If They Code Like Kids At $43K/Yr School

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  • Underestimating (Score:5, Funny)

    by jblues ( 1703158 ) on Wednesday August 05, 2015 @05:31AM (#50254467)

    I often find myself under-estimating children's abilities. In this case TFA child's programming, empathy and literature skills are impressive, but their ability to speak such fluent 'customer testimonial' at a young age is simply astounding.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Well, learning such a testimonial by heart is certainly less work than learning the part of Lady MacBeth for a class play, and the language is more akin to the sentence fragments school kids communicate with these days than Early Modern English, too.

      At any rate: stereotypical behavior patterns/roles are only remotely connected to stereotypical speech patterns, so I don't really see how chat bots play into understanding MacBeth.

      To me that seems like a lot of hogwash intended to impress computer illiterate pe

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by jblues ( 1703158 )

        Er, exactly. I was making a joke (maybe not actually funny) about how the testimonial sounded a lot like recited performance and not an improvisation.

    • LMOL priceless....

  • If I spent 43k/year on a kids education (Score:3)

    by Crashmarik ( 635988 ) on Wednesday August 05, 2015 @05:34AM (#50254485)

    I'd expect a simply better educational experience all around code or no code.

  • Coding or merely time with Macbeth? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    I don't doubt that learning to code can train a child to think logically and be creative, but I would put the increase of knowledge of the play down to merely spending more time with the play, rather than coding itself. The conclusion of the study seems to be very self-serving.

    • This was my thought as well. I remember hating Heart of Darkness freshman year of high school. It was the most difficult and boring book I'd ever read (mostly things like LotR or Gödel, Escher, Bach up until this point) and made no sense. I had to write a five page paper on it, so went to the library and read some books about it. Anyway, after studying the book as opposed to reading it for entertainment value, the re-reading the book and watching Apocalypse Now, it became one of my favorites.

    • Agreed. The fact that they had to cite such an obviously flawed anecdotal example indicates to me that they have no real evidence to offer. It also gives me reason to doubt their motives. Learning to code does have obvious advantages in logical thinking, which people today could definitely stand more of. But the coding skills don't, in and of themselves, increase ability to learn or understand the humanities any more than writing skills do. It is only the fact that most writing assignments require students

    • Re: (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      I don't doubt that learning to code can train a child to think logically and be creative, but I would put the increase of knowledge of the play down to merely spending more time with the play, rather than coding itself. The conclusion of the study seems to be very self-serving.

      The aptitude to solve problems using a programming language derives from fundamental mathematical skills not the other way. Computer programming can be reduced to applied mathematics. Having children "create" the next Angry Birds does not teach them the broader more important skills required. Besides the causal link between music and mathematics has been established; children involved in learning a musical instrument tend to perform better in mathematics, while children who excel at mathematics might not al

      • The aptitude to solve problems using a programming language derives from fundamental mathematical skills not the other way. Computer programming can be reduced to applied mathematics. Having children "create" the next Angry Birds does not teach them the broader more important skills required. Besides the causal link between music and mathematics has been established; children involved in learning a musical instrument tend to perform better in mathematics, while children who excel at mathematics might not always perform well in terms of learning to play of musical instrument.

        I fundamentally disagree. The aptitude to solve problems using a programming language derives from logic, not maths. There is a great deal of overlap in core skills used for maths and core skills used for programming however. For example breaking the task down into the smallest parts. This is common to maths as well as programming but it cannot be said to be a mathematical skill.

  • Correlation != Cause (Score:5, Informative)

    by msobkow ( 48369 ) on Wednesday August 05, 2015 @05:52AM (#50254541) Homepage Journal

    All of these articles about CS lately confuse correlation with cause.

    The simple fact of the matter is that kids who enjoy the "challenge" of programming are more likely to be logical, analytical thinkers than their peers, and are therefore likely to do better at all subjects that require those skills. Taking a CS course is not "causing" them to be better at those other subjects -- their ability is innate.

    Forcing someone to take a class they neither enjoy nor are good at is not going to magically make them better students. It will expand their experience with different subjects, but it's not going to make them good at it.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      All of these complaints about children needing to have an existing aptitude or interest in CS and logic confuse children for adults.

      An interest in CS and logical thinking are not things children are born with, like blue eyes or blond hair. They are things that are learned and discovered during their childhoods. One of the reasons we "force" children to do activities at school that they have no previously shown any interest in is so that they can experience them and learn about them.

      While a small number may

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by msobkow ( 48369 )

        That is just liberal hogwash. Some people are better at some things than others, and no amount of forced classes or training is going to make them any better at it.

        • So what you're saying is training is useless? Don't get me wrong, the person you replied to is denying reality, we all have different natural abilities, some people are naturally a lot better than others, but training pretty much do make everyone better.

          • Training isn't useless, forced training is. Making kids take programming classes is about as useful as forcing them to take Art appreciation or classical music training.

        • Not true at all, according to scientific understanding of the development of expertise. "Talent" is a myth.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by msobkow ( 48369 )

            If education could magically impart an IQ of 120 on someone with an IQ of 75, do you think we'd have people like you in this world?

            • Your argument is the complement to the argument that a poor education can't produce a poor student.

              General education can't, categorically, impart an IQ of 120 because we would simply settle that level of intelligence as an IQ of 100; however, yes, it turns out that adjusting our education system can provide for running poor, black, inner-city ghetto kids through a low-cost school system and getting out people who are competent engineers and capable of passing into MENSA by current standards.

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by msobkow ( 48369 )

                I'm not arguing that improvements to education wouldn't produce better and more knowledgeable students. Far from it.

                What I am arguing is that some people are innately better at certain things than others, and that no amount of education will correct for that. Some people are "smart", others are gifted in art or music, others are athletically inclined. Without the differences between us, the world would be monotone.

                But there are differences between people, and no amount of education or practice will

                • What I am arguing is that some people are innately better at certain things than others, and that no amount of education will correct for that. Some people are "smart", others are gifted in art or music, others are athletically inclined.

                  Science suggests this is about as real a phenomena as Santa Clause, save for people having variation on how well they develop physical stamina or strength. Artists, musicians, and engineers aren't born; they're made; athletes *are* born--they're made, sure, but you actually have to start with the right stuff to work from, and not everyone has that. Everyone can learn and apply the same training methods and the same expertise in the play of various sports exactly as well as anyone else, but some people si

        • No, what you are spouting is bullshit which isn't back by any shred of research. Move along Zippy.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          Of course, but you completely missed the points. People need to experience things before they know if they will like them, and almost everyone, save those with developmental disabilities, can achieve a certain minimum level if given the opportunity. Like most people can read and do basic arithmetic, I'm certain most people could learn the basics of coding. It might even help them think logically about other problems.

        • The idea that some people are just born programmers and some are not is ridiculous...

          That is just liberal hogwash. Some people are better at some things than others, and no amount of forced classes or training is going to make them any better at it.

          True and false. I just don't understand whenever we talk about learning, why do people look at it as black and white. In other words, why do they look at learning as CAN or CANNOT.

          Every single person has CAPABILITY, which is the limitation of learning, and LEARNING SPEED; however, EACH person could easily have different level of capability & learning speed. Not everyone can learn the same thing and achieve the same level of knowledge.

          If we look at learning this way, we will UNDERSTAND that both quotes

    • Well said.

    • Re:Correlation != Cause (Score:4, Insightful)

      by gstoddart ( 321705 ) on Wednesday August 05, 2015 @08:59AM (#50255091) Homepage

      You know, a good quality education, and engaged parents can probably go a long way to fostering both ability and aptitude.

      From what I can see, kids are like sponges. All things being equal, give them opportunities and teach them, and they'll just get better.

      But pretending like CS is some mag bullet which makes all kids smarter and excel at all things is just plain fantasy.

      The one and only time in school I was sufficiently afraid of failing an exam than I intended to cheat, I spent a bunch of hours reviewing it, summarizing it, making tiny little notes I could use for cheating ... and found myself in the class realizing that, quite shockingly, I understood the material.

      I don't think it's the magic of creating a chatbot which made these kids understand Macbeth. I think it's the fact that they spent time studying and interacting with it on a level other than simply reading through the play.

      I'm all for giving kids access to computers and encouraging them. But I think it's a complete crock to claim that the act of learning to code improved their understanding of Macbeth. The act of studying Macbeth in a personal way improved their understanding of Macbeth.

      • You know, a good quality education, and engaged parents can probably go a long way

        Your parents should be married...

      • I don't think it's the magic of creating a chatbot which made these kids understand Macbeth. I think it's the fact that they spent time studying and interacting with it on a level other than simply reading through the play.

        Exactly. Doing something active with the material helps it to stick. Translating it into a foreign language (or rewriting it in modern English), performing it, or making a cartoon strip of it would have had a similar effect. Even reading it out loud would be better than nothing.

    • The simple fact of the matter, as you say, is everyone making blunt, complex observations. The results are all inefficient: teach people to code and hope the exercise forces them to magic up how to "think logically". Throw kids into $43k/year schools, when the worst performing schools consume $20k+ per student-year, and the best performing schools moderately cluster around the lowest cost (8 of the top 10 school districts consume under $9k/year, and two are the lowest-funded school districts in the coun

    • So you're saying people can't learn. Got it.

  • We covered Macbeth at school when I was 14. I don't think I was particularly disadvantaged by covering it the old fashioned way; with a decent teacher who helped us over some of the linguistic bumps, covered key themes and character arcs and had us do rough-and-ready re-enactments of a few of the scenes to understand both the "flow" of Shakespeare's language and the pace and tone of the play. I struggle to understand how technology would have helped much above and beyond that.

    We've had a flood of articles o

    • Ancient and non-Indo-European languages can be particularly good, as learning these requires engagement with the logical underpinnings of "how a language works". French/Spanish/German etc, unfortunately often tend to be taught using a "phrasebook" approach that might result in a faster route to a passable fluency (provided the conversation remains within comfortable bounds), but doesn't bring the same wider benefits.

      Except for the basic grammar, logical is one of the last things I'd use to describe a natural language. Computer languages more in common with math than with natural languages. So trying to understand Macbeth with computer science is like finding out the magic formula for a Hollywood blockbuster. You know Hollywood movie follow a certain formula, but why is a cretain big budget movie a bomb, and another one is a blockbuster?

    • Anyone who has done a bachelor's degree in any subject has had to learn the necessary organisational, self siscipline and critical thinking skills to be able to train to do more or less any job. Otherwise, there's no point in having university degrees.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

      Ancient and non-Indo-European languages can be particularly good, as learning these requires engagement with the logical underpinnings of "how a language works". French/Spanish/German etc, unfortunately often tend to be taught using a "phrasebook" approach that might result in a faster route to a passable fluency (provided the conversation remains within comfortable bounds), but doesn't bring the same wider benefits.

      European languages reflect the history of the world quite well.

      You've got the Romantic langu

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Got any salsa to go with that giant chip on your shoulder?

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by hattig ( 47930 )

      You clearly had an opportunity to pull yourself out of that situation.

      However studies have shown that in the main, it doesn't matter how motivated you are to get out of being poor - everything is stacked against you, and in a competitive employment environment you will always be overlooked in favour of someone who had opportunities that you didn't because they simply got further, have experience more, and done more, and are better educated. These differences have been traced back to being a toddler - toddle

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        You clearly had an opportunity to pull yourself out of that situation.

        However studies have shown that in the main, it doesn't matter how motivated you are to get out of being poor - everything is stacked against you, [...]

        It's sort of amusing that one historical solution to that problem was emigration to the U.S. These days, you are likely best off returning to Europe and leaving it to the Native Americans to teach all those "self-made" Rockefellers that one cannot eat money.

      • I came from a poorer immigrant neighborhood and know three families in my neighborhood where every kid in the family wound up as a dr, engineer, lawyer or some high equivalent profession, yet their next door neighbor kids with the same economic opportunities drop out of high school and have 4 kids by the time they're 25 and end up incarcerated for selling meth.

  • Similar results are possible with any subject (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Required Snark ( 1702878 ) on Wednesday August 05, 2015 @06:31AM (#50254629)
    It's not about teaching computer programming because software is "special". It's about coming in with extra resources and teaching anything with a high degree of rigor. This could be done with math, English, Latin, Biology, even gardening. (I worked people who were involved with what became the charter school movement, and they used a school yard garden to coordinate teaching biology, math and other subjects. Yes, grades went up in all subjects.)

    So surprise, surprise, a company with a big stake in software finds the coding is the key subject. If this were being done in Nevada, the magic subject might be probability and statistics...

    • I fully agree with you. I was always pretty logical and rigorous in my studies.

      The issue is that programming is has results right away that show if your thinking is logical and correct.

      The same cannot be said of most other subjects.
      Math is similar, but has been made less rigorous. As well, for most students, math problems typically lack an end state. For example, math proofs are great. I love em. I love that satisfaction. The end state is great. AHA! I got to where I needed. Yet to a lot of students, this i

  • Oh bullshit (Score:4, Insightful)

    by argStyopa ( 232550 ) on Wednesday August 05, 2015 @06:50AM (#50254669) Journal

    Just another example of the classically American naive conceit that "poverty happens" to people randomly, like a strike of lightning from the blue, and not (mostly) from a series of really bad life choices, something which is plausibly heritable.

    My point isn't that poor people can't enjoy Macbeth, but teaching them to code isn't going to make a person like something they didn't enjoy before,, either.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Just another example of the classically American naive conceit that "poverty happens" to people randomly, like a strike of lightning from the blue, and not (mostly) from a series of really bad life choices,

      Well, one of the worst life choices you can make in the U.S. is to pick the wrong parents. In more civilized countries, the effect on your chances to secure an education matching your leanings and abilities is pronouncedly less. The U.S. has about the largest "self-made man" mythology you can find in any country considering itself First World, yet the decks are stacked more against those born without a silver spoon in their mouth than pretty much anywhere else.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by tomhath ( 637240 )

        In more civilized countries, the effect on your chances to secure an education matching your leanings and abilities is pronouncedly less

        Really? Where are these "civilized countries" of which you speak?

        • In more civilized countries, the effect on your chances to secure an education matching your leanings and abilities is pronouncedly less

          Really? Where are these "civilized countries" of which you speak?

          You need to get the fuck out of whatever bubble you live in and travel the world a little. Really, go to Germany, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Luxembourg, Finland, the Czech Republic, Taiwan. Go travel and talk to people. See how they live. It will fucking blow your mind.

    • Re:Oh bullshit (Score:5, Insightful)

      by asylumx ( 881307 ) on Wednesday August 05, 2015 @07:29AM (#50254771)
      What poor life choices do you suppose grade school students made that landed them in poverty?

      • Re:Oh bullshit (Score:4, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 05, 2015 @07:50AM (#50254845)

        Well, their parents are poor which means they obviously made poor life choices [citation needed]. And since poor choice making is clearly hereditary [citation needed], even if the kids haven't made poor choices YET they likely would have if the ball had been in their court [citation needed]. So it hardly matters from an ethical perspective.

      • What poor life choices do you suppose grade school students made that landed them in poverty?

        Kool-Aid - It's a hell of a drug

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by bledri ( 1283728 )

      Just another example of the classically American naive conceit that "poverty happens" to people randomly, like a strike of lightning from the blue, and not (mostly) from a series of really bad life choices, something which is plausibly heritable.

      My point isn't that poor people can't enjoy Macbeth, but teaching them to code isn't going to make a person like something they didn't enjoy before,, either.

      Yeah. Little bastard choose to be born to poor parents, in a poor neighborhood. He deserves to suffer for it.

      Had he been a better person, he would have forced his parents to expose him to language before he learned to talk by holding a gun in his pudgy little baby hands and forcing them to read to him. Had he been a moral child, he would have made a time machine and borrowed his own fully developed adult pre-frontal cortex from the future to make make better life choices as a pre-schooler.

      My point isn't t

    • Just another example of the classically American naive conceit that "poverty happens" to people randomly, like a strike of lightning from the blue, and not (mostly) from a series of really bad life choices, something which is plausibly heritable.

      Stupid poor child. He/she made the bad life choice of being born out of poor uneducated parents.

      Stupid poor child that happened to be born when his father's job went to China and his savings evaporated during the Enron-Apocalypse.

      Stupid poor child, who told him to be born out of a crackhead parent?

      Stupid poor child, who told him to be born out of a mother that was abandoned while pregnant?

      Poverty is a function of moral failure as per the great self-made-man American myth.

  • pay your f**king taxes (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 05, 2015 @07:12AM (#50254719)

    maybe if google paid their taxes you wouldnt have this problem, you have to admire their chutzpa though,
    they want to get involved in public education but dont want to pay for it at all,
    meantime your schools have to beg for pencils http://www.donorschoose.org/ [donorschoose.org]

    you should be running them out of all education/government contracts

  • Spending per student in Massachusetts public schools ranges from $10 to $30k/year depending on the district.

    http://profiles.doe.mass.edu/s... [mass.edu]

  • Kids were grasping Macbeth before there were computers to program.

    Sure, if you build your own study aid you learn the material. That doesn't mean programming makes you better, smarter, or more fucking capable of grasping Macbeth.

    It means that with high quality teaching, in small classes with dedicates teachers who know their stuff, and for students who have the benefits of wealthy parents and a decent breakfast ... and all of the other benefits kids who go to an expensive private school have ... that educa

  • if they didn't go home to an over stressed and overworked parent (singular, since it's hard to keep a Marriage together when you're poor), didn't suffer from food insecurity (it's coming back in the South & Rust belt) and didn't have 40+ kids in their class.

    Naw, Google's right. We just need more coders (which will coincidentally reduce the value of software programming skills, who knew?)

  • Teach kids to code by writing applications that do something Liberal-Artsy - whoa, they just learned two things at once!

    All this for only >$40K - wow, if only public schools could emulate this amazing technique.

    Pfffft.

  • Create an app that echos back lines from the play when you feed it another line. You can learn so much about the play from that.

    Here's an idea. How about using the money to get a proper teacher instead of a babysitter and actually learn about the play, what things might mean in it, what Scotland was like during the time it was set in, and even about Shakespeare's time and life and how it would impact his writing. Get an inspiring teacher and the students would learn much more. When I studied plays for t

  • It couldn't be that Google would like (future) access to coders that would be willing to work for less than what rich kids would expect to make?

  • Umm (Score:2)

    by thrig ( 36791 )

    Wait, how interactive? Because, you know, Macbeth ain't alls well that ends well...

  • We now know that CS education is worse for minority students than for more fortunate students just like all other areas of education. Unreasonable distribution of wealth does cause social strife and ultimately things like revolutions and a lot of violent crime, drug and alcohol addiction etc.. So the real answer is that if we really want poor students to do well we have to redistribute wealth so that the richest of the rich and the poorest of the poor are much closer together economically. Gosh and g
  • So, you're saying that exposing kids to the works of Shakespeare makes them better able to understand it? And that more and more interactive exposure yields corresponding increases in that understanding? Wow. Who knew? So where's your proof that it's computer programming that was the key factor here. Hmm?
  • I was animating sprites on an Amstrad CPC664 to re-enact the Macbeth scene "is this a dagger I see before me?". Got extra credit for it too. Kids don't need stinking expensive schools to do this stuff.
  • Do we really need more kids to learn to code? I mean, can't we just get robots to do that for us?

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