[Gllug] Logo as a first language

[Nix]

On Tue, 08 Mar 2005, Holger Duerer uttered the following:
>>>>>> "Nix" == Nix  <nix at esperi.org.uk> writes:
>     Nix> On Fri, 04 Mar 2005, Holger Duerer said:
>     >> It all sounds to me like just another facet of the current
>     >> trend to put our children as early as possible into the rat
>     >> race that we call life.  Competitiveness, competitiveness,
>     >> competitiveness.  Give them computers as early as possible
>     >> otherwise they might fall behind...
> 
>     Nix> There's substantial evidence from psychology, paediatry and
>     Nix> neurology that introducing people to some things
>     Nix> (particularly languages) as young as possible is
>     Nix> beneficial. Humans eeem to be optimized for learning
>     Nix> languages between the ages of about one and five.
> 
> Yes, I know.  My sons are being raised bilingually.  But are you
> arguing that computer languages also count as 'languages' or just
> generally that exposure to brain challenging things is good?

That you'll get better at {X} where {X} is related to learning
languages if you start {X} young.

I'm certain that some people don't treat them as languages: those who
treat them as maths seem to be able to do equally well no matter when
they start. (This seems to be somewhat rarer; perhaps it's harder to
do.)

I'm also fairly sure that the concept of `computer language' doesn't map
directly to `natural language'; computer languages are far simpler, for
starters, and the relationships between most of them are very obvious
(they've not had long to diverge, although the divergence is of course
far faster than linguistic drift because it occurs through quite
different mechanisms).

> a) My opinion is that there are more important things to teach our
>    children.

Most children probably won't be interested, anyway. Just give them
the opportunity and see if they *are* interested :)

>               We have only limited resources and there is only a
>    limited amount of time/attention/... that the children have so we
>    have to make decisions what to teach them or expose them to in
>    order to develop them.

Well, of course.

> b) I object to the message that comes with the computer education,
>    i.e. the pressure to learn things that will be useful in the
>    future.

That message is implied by *all* education, and indeed by all learning:
why learn something that'll never be of any use whatsoever? I can't
think of *anything* learnable that that applies to.

But `it will be useful isn't really a good reason to learn something per
se: probably `it's enjoyable' or `it's interesting' will work far better
as a motivator.

> Governments just like computers in schools because it is

Computers in schools as currently done are almost entirely a crock as
far as I can tell.

Notably most of the school computers just get used to `teach' things
like `here's how you use Word'. This is IMHO akin to refusing to admit
the existence of algebra or of any maths more complex than arithmetic;
the truly interesting thing about computers *is* their generality and
their potential to `do what you say very very fast'. Teaching people
word processing is about as interesting as teaching them to write with a
pen rather than a pencil.

>     Nix> I'm fairly convinced that if I hadn't been given access to
>     Nix> computers early (the age of four, in my case), I'd be *much*
>     Nix> worse at them than I am now. I've rarely encountered anyone
>     Nix> who first met computers post-adolescence who I'd describe as
>     Nix> good (although there are of course certain genius exceptions:
>     Nix> e.g. Don Knuth).
> Erm.  I cannot really comment on this as I don't know enough people in
> IT who are old enough.  I *do* know that most people exposed to
> computers in their youth are just as crap at programming as e.g my
> father is.

This probably depends on personal interest, and on whether they were
exposed to computers by way of programming them or by way of using them
to play games on. The latter, well, it's not going to give you skills
that relate to software development or to using the full power of said
general-purpose machine, is it? :)

>     Nix> If you're just a user, not a developer, it's probably not so
>     Nix> important.
> Indeed.  And how many developers do we need in the future?  Enough to
> warrant wasting all children's time with computers today?

Definitely not. (See above opinion on the computers in schools rubbish.)

>     Nix> (In my case I'm especially lucky; if it hadn't been for that
>     Nix> early chance encounter with computers I'd probably be either
>     Nix> unemployable or institutionalized now, as this seems to be
>     Nix> the fate of people with severe Asperger's who don't happen to
>     Nix> focus on something useful...)
> 
> Heck, I hadn't been exposed to computers in my youth I might have
> turned out to be a more social person.  Or I could have become an
> accountant and made lots of money...

Health warning: both my parents became accountants and only one had been
exposed to computers before that point. :)

(I doubt you'd have been better at socialising unless you spent the vast
majority of your time entirely alone. Most humans are, from my POV,
*astonishingly* good at effortlessly handling terrifyingly complex
models of others' minds...)

-- 
> ...Hires Root Beer...
What we need these days is a stable, fast, anti-aliased root beer
with dynamic shading. Not that you can let just anybody have root.
 --- John M. Ford
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