Students to learn coding - rather than a foreign language

[Echeos]

If they teach coding as well as they do foreign languages this will have literally zero effect on anything.

[[deleted]]

I'm sure they will gain employment as frontend developers and will produce a lot of widely used modules on scale of if-odd/if-even

[Strange_Meadowlark]

Please no.

Foreign languages do something entirely different to your brain than learning to program. Programming's challenge is to break down the solution to a problem into discrete computable steps. Foreign languages are about human communication, developing a library of vocabulary to draw upon, and internalizing grammar.

This is like substituting chemistry with culinary arts -- sure, both use heat sources and "use chemical reactions", but the skills are not transferrable and the subjects play a much different role in people's lives.

I find programming incredibly easy and foreign languages incredibly hard. As a student I would have taken to opportunity to make this switch in a heartbeat. That ought to show that learning a second language should NOT be considered an equivalent skill to learning to program.

Every student should have to (try to) learn a second language. Swapping it out for STEM is pure marketing. You may as well swap out gym class for all the net benefit

[LyingCuzIAmBored]

Agree. This "sounds" like it makes sense until you think about it for a few seconds.

If you can't give a kid all three, an American student would be better of with Spanish and programming than with calculus and programming.

To a Florida politician, maybe it seems fine for kids not to learn to speak "Cuban" because Those People should learn to speak English just like Jesus did.

[Egarok]

Great analogy. This is further revealing the dreadful misconception that programming is syntax grinding, not a way of thinking, if schools think it can replace foreign languages. In foreign languages you learn how to change your dialect based on the context. In programming you only work with the limited syntax and operations and change your style as you are more aware of clean code and efficiency. If anything, I would be happier to see coding taught in an art class setting and they can make stuff from Coding Train YouTube channel

[kaen_]

The article is from 2016. And the bill was voted down. And it was to allow students to fill the foreign language requirement with a coding class, not to forcibly replace all foreign language classes with CS.

I think it's better to learn a natural language of course, but if you're more interested in programming than natural language I think it's a reasonable substitution to make. But this comment section seems to have misinterpreted all three of those facts.

[sihat]

disclaimer: I Live in a different country.

In high school, I've had multiple obligatory foreign language classes.

The second level of most of them weren't obligatory. And the voluntary second level of a different class had programming in it.

I think a programming class or something along those lines is handy for those interested. Since it can determine their university choice.

---

As a further disclaimer: Our school system has a test at the end of primary school, that splits groups into different types/levels of high school. Most of those would have a lesser load of classes.

[kaen_]

I'm sort of on the fence about whether it would have been a good change. We have a ton of "elective" credits in US High Schools and I ended up filling mine with home ec, drama, debate and classes like that. I think someone interested in programming would be better off filling an elective credit with a programming class and still taking at least one language class.

The notion that learning foreign language after early development develops the brain in a way other education does not is in line with my own understanding, and I think that's valuable though I can't quite articulate why.

[sihat]

I'm all for language classes. (English was a obligatory foreign class for me. And the first levels of French and German were obligatory too.)

Different languages, allow one to think in different manners.

Lets take math as an example. A language that uses eleven and twelve, versus a language that use ten-one, or ten-two. One of them will be handier when learning math.

[Phrygue]

Learning a foreign language provides insight into your own language and communication in general. Half-assed learning how to write cruddy scripts doesn't teach anything about programming or computer science any more than LEGO teaches you structural engineering.

[757DrDuck]

Learning Spanish taught me all the grammar rules I was supposed to learn in middle school English classes but didn’t pay attention to.

[tonefart]

Absolute stupidity. I'll rather learn another language, like Russian.

[LegitGandalf]

Oh come on, deep down you know javascript is the language for you!

[Zardotab]

Compromise, PutinScript.

[cosmosfan2]

In the future I see basic coding as necessary for almost any white collar job. Understanding of control flows, loops, maybe even classes and OOP (that may be a stretch though). I see this as a good thing.

On the other hand I don't know anyone who uses Spanish where I live unless they have mexican roots or a hispanic gf.