The reason I think these classes should be mandatory and simple is to get people who otherwise would not have tried it engaged. How many people out there have the potential to be excellent engineers but never get into it because they are not exposed to it? That's why I think it doesn't matter how much the students actually learn about programming in these basic classes. It's just a teaser to get those who normally would not have signed up for a programming course a chance to try it out to see if it's actually a good fit for them. In addition, I do not think it's possible to turn out great programmers from an academic institution. The best that I have worked with have a passion for it and would have been great regardless of their education. However they all have to have been exposed to it at some point for it to click for them and for that interest to turn into a passion. That is the opportunity we should be giving to everyone.

But then again, lets say there is a mandatory "Intro to JavaScript Programming" course at an average American high school. You take it after Algebra, and you have to get at least a C average in the course to graduate. Lets say the class consists of 35 kids. That's a lot of kids, but computers are expensive, and everyone at school has to take this class one year or another before graduation. How many do you think are going to have the "click" with programming that would make them want to pursue it? Not all of them, and by that I mean only a few. Nothing at all is wrong with not liking programming, but do you think if Jonathan P. Doe is in a class with a buddy or two who aren't good students and are only taking the class to graduate that they will behave? They will probably not. And when you have a classroom like that nothing gets done, distractions are made, and the class lags behind severely. The teacher might have to teach Randall P. Roe and 7 other kids a different way than Amy P. Soe and 11 other kids. What happens if Jonathan P. Doe is non-stop screaming with so many people that the teacher loses control? What do you do if Sarah P. Boe finishes all of her assignments early and spends the time undermining the teachers efforts? What do you do if all but a few kids are ruining the class for everybody? I'm sorry, but I don't see how that could work. I know a high school computer teacher, and my examples come straight from things they have said go on in their classes. Because they are mandatory and not leveled like the rest of classes, they become classes where no concentration or study is done whatsoever. That's why, IMO, if programming has to be taught, it should be an adjunct to math courses like Advanced Algebra, Calculus, but mostly Discrete/Analytical Mathematics. Even then, I don't believe enough people would even truly like it at all for such a program to be effective.

These are problems in every class and is in no way unique to programming. An introductory programming class should't be any different from a typing class which is also required in most schools now and requires computers. As I said, the primary reason I want it required is to give every student the opportunity to experience it and decide if it's a course they would like to pursue. It very well could be the opportunity they need to turn their lives around.

The teacher might have to teach Randall P. Roe and 7 other kids a different way than Amy P. Soe and 11 other kids. What happens if Jonathan P. Doe is non-stop screaming with so many people that the teacher loses control? What do you do if Sarah P. Boe finishes all of her assignments early and spends the time undermining the teachers efforts? What do you do if all but a few kids are ruining the class for everybody? I'm sorry, but I don't see how that could work. I know a high school computer teacher, and my examples come straight from things they have said go on in their classes. Because they are mandatory and not leveled like the rest of classes, they become classes where no concentration or study is done whatsoever. That's why, IMO, if programming has to be taught, it should be an adjunct to math courses like Advanced Algebra, Calculus, but mostly Discrete/Analytical Mathematics. Even then, I don't believe enough people would even truly like it at all for such a program to be effective.

I'll chime in again, since I am a high school programming teacher. Teachers deal with different level students alll the time.. so it's not completely unusual to see what you are describing. In my case I differentiate my instruction by creating different levels to assignments by having a core set of requirements geared towards the beginner, but additional challenges that are meant for intermediate and advanced students. My goal is to have all students being challenged all the time. I want as little to no downtime as possible for students so they can stretch their abilities as much as possible. For the beginner students I know exactly who they are.. and while I always want to see them stepping up, sometimes it takes a lot of encouragement and celebration of the small victories to build up their confidence.

And for students who act like dicks when they finish early, that's usually because they aren't being challenged enough. As long as you can put them in their place by showing them just how much they don't know yet you'll be fine. Otherwise, pull them aside after class ends and find a way to improve their classroom experience.. sometimes complementing their abilities and come up with a great side project they can work on can go a long way. "Hey Jim, your programming skills are pretty impressive so far and I know you get your assignments done quicker than anybody else. I have a pretty big programming problem that I'm working on and I think you can help..."

Project Euler is my "warmup" heaven since it is filled with little coding challenges to get their brains going.

That being said, I'm going to have to side with the idea that programming should not be mandatory as a graduation requirement, but should nonetheless be introduced at an early age. I think that states should have better information technology and computer science certifications (that is to say, they should actually exist) so that those with relevant skills don't need to take countless accounting, business administration, and other non-relevant courses in order to teach programming. Even for me with four levels of calculus in my CS degree I had to go the math certification route and take an additional five math classes.

A more substantial effort should be made to promote the importance of this particular area of education. It's being neglected largely because the teachers aren't available to teach it. And those who can teach it end up being largely unqualified to teach programming. Really, for a lot of programming teachers it's going to be a love of teaching and a passion for picking up as much as you can about the subject that is going to make a programming teacher great. A lot of the concepts teachers employ these days in any other subject still apply.

A basic teacher lesson will include some type of warmup activity, a short lesson, a period of time where you are asked to solve problems in a guided manner, a period of time where you are left to your own devices as an individual to perform the lesson objectives, and a mandatory review period at the end of the lesson in which students are compelled to produce some type of evidence of their learning for the day (think of it as answering the question "what did you learn?").

For programming I might ask students to write a small chunk of code that produces the sum of every 4th prime number below 1 million, give a lesson that introduces methods, have students work on creating a few method specifications based off of what I ask, then having them complete a project given some spec.. at the end of the class I'll pull them back together and have them all write down on paper a solution to some problem I give that will show they understand methods.

Let me give my own perspective.

When I was 12 years old (first year at a boarding school) we was thought programming via GWBasic. It wasn't one of the core school subject (there was eight of them) and there is no final year exam either.

It was one hour per week kind of class that we must take in the evening, just like sport and boy scout. It was my first time and I was hooked (first time with a computer too). Before that I've only seen computers on the TV (I live in a village, after all).

The rest was history but a lot of things happened along the way. As you can see I still hang here over the years but I never worked on a programming job.

So uh, thing can be done. I don't remember any problem in the class. But then again, it was a boarding school where the best of the previous year big exam were taken in. So we are talking about disciplined kids (at least when it come to studying, bullying is another matter - even if you are straight A student) that good at learning and adapting to things.

Gosh you are totally right. What were we thinking? The possibility of a programming class becoming like every other class on the planet totally outweighs the potential for some to have their lives turned around, getting turned on to something they didn’t even know was possible, and overall giving the masses a better skillset required to take back jobs that should never have been given to India in the first place.

Sad to say that is capitalism in real life. Currently vfx people are having the same problem too. But businesses will always find way to cut cost. And what happened to car manufacturing or cloth or toys will happen to programmers and 3d animators.