On Sunday, 2 September 2018 at 06:25:47 UTC, Nick Sabalausky
(Abscissa) wrote:
On 08/31/2018 07:47 PM, Jonathan M Davis wrote:
However, many
teachers really aren't great programmers. They aren't
necessarily bad
programmers, but unless they spent a bunch of time in industry
before
teaching, odds are that they don't have all of the software
engineering
skills that the students are going to need once they get into
the field. And
most courses aren't designed to teach students the practical
skills.
This is why we really should bring back the ancient practice of
apprenticeship, that we've mostly gotten away from.
Doesn't have to be identical to the old system in every detail,
but who better to teach XYZ to members a new generation than
those who ARE experts at XYZ.
Sure, teaching in and of itself is a skill, and not every
domain expert is a good teacher. But like any skill, it can be
learned. And after all: Who really stands a better chance at
passing on expertise?:
A. Someone who already has the expertise, but isn't an expert
in teaching.
B. Someone who is an expert at teaching, but doesn't posses
what's being taught anyway.
Hint: No matter how good of a teacher you are, you can't teach
what you don't know.
Heck, if all else fails, pair up domain experts WITH teaching
experts! No need for any jacks-of-all-trades: When people
become domain experts, just "apprentice" them in a secondary
skill: Teaching their domain.
Sounds a heck of a lot better to me than the ridiculous current
strategy of: Separate the entire population into "theory" (ie,
Academia) and "practical" (ie, Industry) even though it's
obvious that the *combination* of theory and practical is
essential for any good work on either side. Have only the
"theory" people do all the teaching for the next generation of
BOTH "theory" and "practical" folks. Students then gain the
"practical" side from...what, the freaking ether???? From the
industry which doesn't care about quality, only profit??? From
the "theory" folk that are never taught the "practical"??? From
where, out of a magical freaking hat?!?!?
I agree. I have been arguing the same for a few years now.
https://www.quora.com/With-6-million-job-openings-in-the-US-why-are-people-complaining-that-there-are-no-jobs-available/answer/Laeeth-Isharc?srid=7h
We de-emphasized degrees and those are information only unless
for work permits it is a factor (and sadly it is) and also are
open to hiring people with less vocationally relevant degrees. A
recent hire I made was a chap who studied music at Oxford and
played the organ around the corner. His boss is a Fellow in
Maths at Trinity College, Cambridge and us very happy with him.
And we started hiring apprentices ourselves. The proximate
trigger for me to make it happen was a frustrating set of
interviews with more career-oriented people from banks for a
support role in London. "Is it really asking too much to expect
that somebody who works on computers should actually like playing
with them ?"
So we went to a technical college nearby where someone in the
group lives and we made a start this year and in time it will
grow.
The government introduced an apprenticeship programme. I don't
think many people use it yet because it's not adapted to
commercial factors. But anything new is bad in the first version
and it will get better.
