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COMPUTER EDUCATION
What Good Is School in the Internet Age?
Adapting to the reality that all human knowledge is in every pocket
Imagine an art school that spares no expense.
It gives each student a sweet, top notch painting set. Fresh out of the wrapper, there’s a palette, an easel, and a whole array of brushes for every student. Top of the line.
Oh… just one thing. No paints. Paints are simply not allowed. After all, students might use paints to create something dangerous, subversive, or inappropriate. Safety first, little dears.
According to EFF, a group of internet privacy advocates, that’s essentially what many (but thankfully not all!) American schools have done in computer science.
The administrations making the tragic choices we’ll talk more about aren’t evil or incompetent, just risk averse.
Schools are killing the prospects of innovation and curiosity because of their incentive structure. If something bad happens, the people in charge are punished. But there’s no upside for providing a real education on potentially “dangerous” things.
Thus we get a dynamic of crippling safety that resembles Hogwarts under Professor Umbridge. Computer Hacking is literally a modern Defense…
