teachers confessions
How school really is
"Everyone should be able to drive a car in a mobile society, but not everyone has to know how it works or is built in detail." With these words, Peter Albrecht, spokesman for the Hamburg Education Authority, justified in 2013 the end of computer science as a compulsory subject at district schools.
If grown-up politicians are naively entrusting themselves to technology, how can children and youths who do not have a scientific service to advise them on all questions be treated? In almost all federal states, the subject computer science is living a niche existence. In electives, it enjoys a status such as religion or philosophy.
Become old by analogy? D rather not
According to Bitkom, 678,000 people are now working in the IT industry, and the trend is rising. In comparison, in the chemical and pharmaceutical industry in 2015 there were only about 450,000, over a third less than 20 years earlier. No one would think that everyone could use soap, batteries, aspirin, gasoline and baby cream without any idea of their content or effect.
Chemistry, Physics, Biology: These are the scientific pillars of a visible and tangible world. For the ladies and gentlemen, who devise the education plans, certainly still a good basis to age analogously. But for teenagers who still have a lifetime of digital advances to match?
Anyway, the new generation of "Digital Natives" could not teach us immigrants immigrants anymore, according to an argument of the computer science opponents. Especially the younger ones have one thing in common: the use of graphical user interfaces. In that they are true experts. Since early childhood, they have been wiping across touchscreens, blindly writing messages while cycling, blogging and making the next date with Tinder - they do not need much more for their daily lives. At best, when freeing up memory for new photos, they are forced to deal with the technology a little bit.
No teacher can do that by the way
However, what happens in the background, where and how the devices communicate, process, distribute, encrypt and store data - few people have any idea. They also do not learn this through the simple use of apps: Who wants to understand computer science, must deal with it intensively. Without mathematics and logic, the children do not get by: algorithms, data structures and programming languages. It all takes time and practice.
Opponents of computer science recommend to integrate the basic information technology education in the subject teaching. Sure, Googling, we all can somehow, but in order to stay up to date and select the important age-appropriate, we need real experts. That can not be a physics teacher, let alone a German teacher, just by the way.
We should equip our young people for the international labor market. Because the others do not sleep. Many countries have long reacted to the development. For example, the United Kingdom, the United States and New Zealand have integrated computer science firmly into the curriculum. In Germany, however, the subject loses itself in education federalism: Only in Bavaria, Saxony and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern is it mandatory.
Leaving computer science to the electives also penalizes educational and IT-distant layers. Anyone who thinks well with their children and has the appropriate knowledge and infrastructure, even at home ensures that they can deal with computers. For children from humble backgrounds, however, the school is still the most important source of knowledge. If they do not get their computer knowledge here, they will not get it anywhere.
Certainly - not everyone can and must work as an IT specialist. But other professions are also shaped by digitization. Jobs from the pilot to the interpreter are in danger in the next few years. The factories have already caught, now the offices are on it. That's what digital literacy is all about. What can I learn so that I am valuable for a whole professional life? What decisions do I have to make for this?
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Who knows how algorithms work, who has basic knowledge about artificial intelligence, can foresee with whom or what he will have to do in the future on the job market.
At the federal level, the SPD in 2015 ventured once a push for nationwide computer science education. "Anyone who wants a new school subject must also say which old subject he wants to do without," threatened North Rhine-Westphalia's Green School Minister Sylvia Löhrmann. The argument is not new, because it is very easy to get hundreds of thousands of teachers on their side who see their subjects swimming away.
Hamburg 2011 has already impressively demonstrated how the hourly table can be streamlined for a new subject. Since then, the subject theater has become compulsory from grade 1-6. Despite the lack of qualified teachers, the reform was pushed through. The high school graduation, students can now put in the theater. Sure, computer science in elementary school makes no sense, but it becomes clear: Where there is a will for reform, there is also a way.
The only question is why the will is there for the subject of theater, not for computer science. Take a look around your work environment: What would you like more colleagues from - good performers or people who are familiar with computers?
