Monday 29 September 2014
Well, it is a known fact that Indians are good with computers. In fact, it's more of a racial stereotype. But, that really isn't true. Out of maybe 1.2 billion Indians, a few million are good with computers. And they're good, because they genuinely care about computers and have learned what they know online/from books/external classes.
What I hear from most of my foreign friends is that Indians are taught everything in school. But, again, that really isn't true. It's like our Bollywood movies. What foreigners think about us, is never really true.
Well, we are taught about computers in school, but that is nothing compared to what they should be teaching. Now, I'm not saying they should teach us C++, Java or any programming language to be honest. Not even talking about teaching Macromedia Flash, Photoshop or Scratch.
But, schools should teach us how to survive in today's digital world. As in, teach us how to
- Upload videos/images/audios to specific sites like YouTube, Photobucket, Mediafire etc.
- Back up our files using online cloud storage.
- Creating and effectively using Blogs, Forums etc.
- Making basic websites using pre-coded templates through sites like Network Solutions etc.
But instead, what we're taught is
- MS Paint: This isn't all that bad for 8 year olds, but today, they should be learning how to make their own email-IDs and sending emails and such
- Logo: Let's face it, even though it is a good introduction to programming (and the language that got me interested in programming) it is really outdated and has no scope.
- GWBASIC: This one is even worse.
- QBASIC: Definitely better than Logo and GWBASIC but, it is not a necessity and less than useful for people that do not/do not want to understand programming.
- MS Office: Well, this one is pretty useful, but we're only taught Powerpoint and Word. Both are very easy to learn and should not be taught for a whole year. Instead, Excel should be taught as it is the first step in creating digital databases.
- Creating web-pages: I was so excited to find out we were going to learn how to create web-pages. I already knew HTML but I love watching my classmates struggle with programming. Instead, they taught us how to create web-pages USING WORD! That is just wrong.
Now, that's what my school teaches. Some other schools teach Scratch which is like a drag 'n drop programming language that mostly deals with graphics. Again, it's good for young programmers but it's not a necessity.
In 10th grade, we're being taught about blogs and forums. Of course, forums and blogs aren't a necessity either, but most students in 10th grade can't recover a forgotten password.
And even in case of blogs, we're only taught about the extreme basics a.k.a creating blogs and creating posts. Nothing about embedding images and videos. Nothing about customizing templates. Nothing about adding gadgets. Nothing about changing the layout. All of this is mostly clicking on buttons, and requires no programming knowledge.
And because most students don't feel the need to learn about programming languages, they neglect this subject. Then, they turn out to be like 1990s adults who are now lost in the world of technology, requiring technical guidance at every step.
