Sweden introduces programming from Grade 1

[-TesseracT-]

2 hours ago, Prysin said:

AHAHAHA, finland is not scandinavia. They are "nordic", but not scandinavia. Read up on some ethnic history pl0x.

Also, you are moving from England to the most depressed and anti social country on earth?! You must really hate social encounters.

I reckon you may despise social encounters as well, indicative of your displayed arrogance and cynicism towards people whom you disagree with. 

[Clanscorpia]

8 hours ago, arnavvr said:

That can be applied to any subject.

I know, but being in a computer science class is significantly worse. I know the feeling especially for mathematics, where Im 3 grades ahead.

[MrDynamicMan]

On 16/03/2017 at 7:22 PM, matrix07012 said:

Ok, this is retarded. Formal Operational Stage starts at age 11.

"let's spend 5 years teaching kids something that I can learn in my first week of hitting grade 8."

 

Jus t to maths until then. Similar logic and doesn't waste tons of resources. 

[reniat]

Just throwing this out there: I regularly volunteer with a local group that teaches kids to code starting at age 7 (grade 1), and you'd be amazing at how fast they can pick up CS concepts. And before you say it, very few of the students in attendance are programmers' kids who are already exposed, there are a lot of low income families who are trying to give their kids the skills they didn't have a chance to learn growing up, and they are picking it up really impressively. 

 

When an 8 year old stands up in front of 40+ of his peers to present his project built with lists and randomization while beaming with pride, it's an awesome thing to see.

 

oh, and for those curious we primarily use scratch, a learning language/framework from MIT, for kids that young. It works great at teaching the fundamentals while staying engaging. 

[Prysin]

On 16/03/2017 at 6:58 PM, Memories4K said:

I see this as doing the wrong things for the right reasons.

I like the idea, don't get me wrong; early opportunities to learning programming is awesome but not like this.
I don't see too many kids doing well in these courses without watering down the courses themselves to where the value would be better placed in regular math classes (at least in early learning; 8-year olds).
Another is what about those that have no interest in learning programming?
Is this a required course?
Are the teacher's being properly compensated for their work?
If not, are those teachers of a lower-quality skill in order to reflect that value in compensation?

oh, this will definetively be watered down to the point were a mentally retarded kid with every form of autism, ADD and downs combined can learn it. 

[Prysin]

19 hours ago, -TesseracT- said:

I reckon you may despise social encounters as well, indicative of your displayed arrogance and cynicism towards people whom you disagree with. 

you couldnt be further off. I'm not socially inept as many may think, partly because if my line of work.

[matrix07012]

9 hours ago, reniat said:

 

oh, and for those curious we primarily use scratch, a learning language/framework from MIT, for kids that young. It works great at teaching the fundamentals while staying engaging. 

We learned Scratch last year...

[techswede]

On 2017-03-17 at 0:16 AM, Memories4K said:

That sucks ass, why do you have to sew? hahaha
I hate that.
As a type of elective course or option then i think it's cool but i mean c'mon it's not a necessity, the money and time spent would be better spent on other things; i mean sewing as a required course? c'monnnnnnn
.

Sewing was awesome. I'd like to see this programming course take on a similar role as an optional course. 

In my school we could choose between sewing and woodworking. I ended up doing both.

So after school i could sew my own clothes and also forge a knife  

We also had a technical class where we did some sheet metal work and learned how to wire up things. 

 

Would still rather see a class like "Adulting 101" which covers tax declarations and all that stuff instead.

[MyName13]

Good luck with finding people who can program and want to teach...kids.

[SansVarnic]

On 3/17/2017 at 0:42 AM, ParanoidWallet said:

Where is it mis-leading?  Probably me just not seeing it.. The title is more or less the same as the Swedish media used..

<snip snip>

Its the wording - makes one think the coding is coming from the first grade... the article itself is a bit odd with its explanation as well. The ifrc without going back to re-read it the program has nothing really to do with the first grade, but yeah I need to re-read the article.

[LAwLz]

Seems like people are reading the title and jumping to conclusions.

What it will be is some fundamental principles of programming will be introduced in math and "technology" courses. Think less "child in first grade learning C++" and more "child in first grade learns that a domino brick falling on another domino brick creates a chain reaction". Or something along those lines.

 

On 3/17/2017 at 11:33 AM, Prysin said:

the issue is not english. It's that other gibberish pretend language they speak.

there is only 3 real languages in Scandinavia

Viking (Icelandic)

Danish (Denmark)
Perfected Danish (Norwegian)

 

all else is BS

Sigh... We give you independence and this is how you repay us? Ungrateful little bastards.

 

 

On 3/17/2017 at 0:16 AM, Memories4K said:

That sucks ass, why do you have to sew? hahaha

Sewing is awesome.

I still have some of the things I made in elementary school on my bookshelf.

It's not so much about learning to sew as it is learning how to follow instructions, plan ahead, use simple tools and other things like that.

[Djole123]

It's good to have programming in school, but year 1, really?

 

But still infinitely better than here where a lot of schools don't have any PCs at all...

[Prysin]

17 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

Sigh... We give you independence and this is how you repay us? Ungrateful little bastards.

We gave you plenty of land in return, so stop whining. You didnt like us anyway.

Not to mention that you swedes are the "youngest" of the three big scandinavian countries to become a large kingdom somewhat resembling what we have today. (Denmark 800s, Norway 1020-1030, Sweden 1200s)

 

You swedes are just opportunists. Whilst we norwegians ran around the world, taking Iceland, hebrides, faroe islands, orkney, parts of ireland, parts of scotland, greenland, parts of canada, the mumansk peninsula, isle of man and some other places. Denmark was having a feast trading and pillaging in mainland europe.... and what did you swedes do? you hung around and traded. Sometimes fighting the baltic states, sometimes fighting denmark, and when denmark didnt want us anymore (mostly because we became unruly and started infighting - again) you come along and try to lay claim... until we started infighting again, denmark didnt want to deal with that shit. you didnt want to deal with that shit. So all you did was kick us out of the union.

[LAwLz]

3 minutes ago, Prysin said:

-snip-

 

Don't worry little Norway. You might be our younger, stupider brother, and we have had our share of fights in the past, but we still love you. <3

Big sister Sweden is proud of what you have become in the last couple of hundred years. Don't get too full of yourself though. We did own you just a few couple of hundred years ago.

[-TesseracT-]

32 minutes ago, Prysin said:

We gave you plenty of land in return, so stop whining. You didnt like us anyway.

Not to mention that you swedes are the "youngest" of the three big scandinavian countries to become a large kingdom somewhat resembling what we have today. (Denmark 800s, Norway 1020-1030, Sweden 1200s)

 

You swedes are just opportunists. Whilst we norwegians ran around the world, taking Iceland, hebrides, faroe islands, orkney, parts of ireland, parts of scotland, greenland, parts of canada, the mumansk peninsula, isle of man and some other places. Denmark was having a feast trading and pillaging in mainland europe.... and what did you swedes do? you hung around and traded. Sometimes fighting the baltic states, sometimes fighting denmark, and when denmark didnt want us anymore (mostly because we became unruly and started infighting - again) you come along and try to lay claim... until we started infighting again, denmark didnt want to deal with that shit. you didnt want to deal with that shit. So all you did was kick us out of the union.

You loathe present-day Germans for what Germany did in WWII?

[Prysin]

5 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

 

Don't worry little Norway. You might be our younger, stupider brother, and we have had our share of fights in the past, but we still love you. <3

Big sister Sweden is proud of what you have become in the last couple of hundred years. Don't get too full of yourself though. We did own you just a few couple of hundred years ago.

i think denmark is more of a "parent" then you ever were. You left us nothing of value. Denmark is much friendlier with us. Gave us their oil. On which we gained even more money.... All you swedes do is come to south-east norway to peel bananas, work as au-pairs and waiters. Then send the money back home because wages here are way higher.

[Prysin]

6 minutes ago, -TesseracT- said:

You loathe present-day Germans for what Germany did in WWII?

no, because what Germany did in WW2 is nothing compared to what the preussian empire did to the world at large. But this forum is not a place for such controversial history.

[ZothOmmog]

Well as the Swede would say "Gud så härligt"

[GeekJump]

On 3/16/2017 at 0:14 PM, matrix07012 said:

What about learning a normal language first.

Do language classes even work? I thought the overall view is that its good for the grammar side of things but not for learning the language (idk if Sweden has a better language program than the US). It's mostly just memorization and spitting back out w/e is told to you. Personally I was forced to take a language (french) all the way from middle school, high school, and year 1 of college and it did nothing. +7 years of "learning" french and I can just say basic phrases. And before you mention it, I got straight A's in french. 

_______

but back on topic...

I think the first few years are a waste and could be consolidated in 1-2 classes. But the general idea is in the right direction. They should do what most places do with other major courses. Have the basics mandatory and, if you like what you're learning, take the rest as electives.

 

On 3/16/2017 at 0:22 PM, Clanscorpia said:

Why though. Honestly most kids who have potential in tech learn this on their own. In my opinion they arent helping anyone with these.

Not really. Unless you had a good direction or resources some people still need some guidance eventually. Most people can only get so far without help before they hit a wall. I wouldn't know a lot of what I know if it wasn't for electives I took in HS and college. Sure I could have learned on my own but I would have missed stuff and besides, aint not body got time for that.

[Dackzy]

oh god why Sweden? Why the most fucked country in Scandinavia?

[Clanscorpia]

4 hours ago, GeekJump said:

Do language classes even work? I thought the overall view is that its good for the grammar side of things but not for learning the language (idk if Sweden has a better language program than the US). It's mostly just memorization and spitting back out w/e is told to you. Personally I was forced to take a language (french) all the way from middle school, high school, and year 1 of college and it did nothing. +7 years of "learning" french and I can just say basic phrases. And before you mention it, I got straight A's in french. 

_______

but back on topic...

I think the first few years are a waste and could be consolidated in 1-2 classes. But the general idea is in the right direction. They should do what most places do with other major courses. Have the basics mandatory and, if you like what you're learning, take the rest as electives.

 

Not really. Unless you had a good direction or resources some people still need some guidance eventually. Most people can only get so far without help before they hit a wall. I wouldn't know a lot of what I know if it wasn't for electives I took in HS and college. Sure I could have learned on my own but I would have missed stuff and besides, aint not body got time for that.

I taught myself trigonometry and complex algebra and have never "hit a wall"

[Radiant]

On 16.3.2017 at 6:16 PM, Sauron said:

Good!

The majority of swedish kids speak english better than most adult europeans.

all i hear when i talk to them is JAVLA

[GeekJump]

1 hour ago, Clanscorpia said:

I taught myself trigonometry and complex algebra and have never "hit a wall"

brag about it...jk

 

Of course there are some people that are self taught but it's silly to think that's the norm. If that was the case people wouldn't be consistently arguing about bettering schools/education system. Pretty sure if I plopped 30 students in a classroom and told them to "do programming" only 1-2 would eventually figure it out by themselves. The rest would be on the twitters and insta-snaps.

[Clanscorpia]

1 hour ago, GeekJump said:

brag about it...jk

 

Of course there are some people that are self taught but it's silly to think that's the norm. If that was the case people wouldn't be consistently arguing about bettering schools/education system. Pretty sure if I plopped 30 students in a classroom and told them to "do programming" only 1-2 would eventually figure it out by themselves. The rest would be on the twitters and insta-snaps.

Im the only one in my comp science club that really does anything lol I know how it is. We're doing a french project on computers and we had 4 days to do it. I did it in 1 day when most people hadnt started because they were on snapchat and instagram