[FRIAM] coding versus music

[thompnickson2 at gmail.com]

This flies in the face of my belief that you coders know something about
life that we citizens need to know.   I imagine coding to be like trying to
write an instruction to a person such that that person always does what you
want them to do.  So, it is an act of communication in which the
communicatee is always right, no matter how idiotic may be it's response.
No boss ever says to a coder, "Your code was brilliant but unfortunately the
machine didn't understand you."  

 

Am I right about any of that?

 

Nick Thompson

ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com <mailto:ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com> 

https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

 

From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of Prof David West
Sent: Wednesday, January 27, 2021 11:41 AM
To: friam at redfish.com
Subject: [FRIAM] coding versus music

 

For a while now there has been a huge push to teach kids how to code.
Ostensibly because it enhances skills like language, logic, and math; plus,
"computer literacy" is essential in a world filled with computers.

 

A study at MIT suggests that coding skill is orthogonal to reading skill and
has little, if any, influence on development of logic/math skills.

 

An article in the Journal of Neuroscience argues that if you want to
increase the "skills and brainpower" of kids you should teach them music.

 

I came across this information peripherally and have not read the specific
research reported on. I want the reports to be accurate representation of
the research because it confirms long held biases against the value of
"computational thinking" and computer science as a fundamental knowledge
domain.

 

dave west

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/attachments/20210127/470a7094/attachment.html>