"Nobody teaches assembly language"

From: Jules Richardson <julesrichardsonuk_at_yahoo.co.uk>
Date: Wed Jun 23 18:12:03 2004

On Wed, 2004-06-23 at 22:51, Fred Cisin wrote:
> I think that we are getting more than a little past what I can
> realistically teach beginners in one semester.

Give them the course in zip format :-)

> Ten or twenty years ago, we could add followup, more advanced
> classes into the schedule. Now I'm in a [losing] fight for
> survival, trying to keep programming classes alive. If they
> ask me to teach Microsoft Weird again, I might not survive.

Teachers over here are under increasing pressure to deliberately teach
and test students in areas in which they already have prior knowledge.
It has the effect of raising pass marks and making the school look good
in the Government-imposed league tables, and of course makes the
Government look good because they can show how their policies must be
working because there has been a marked improvement in pass rates since
previous years.

Teachers over here aren't actually allowed to think for themselves any
more - just about minute of the day is dictated by central Government
and the workload in terms of red-tape is incredible (naturally leaving
less time for real teaching). Universities are - AFAIK - still
self-governing, but I'm not sure whether that'll last.

cheers

Jules
 
Received on Wed Jun 23 2004 - 18:12:03 BST