[Linux-aus] Re: High school computing texts

[Jon 'maddog' Hall]

> 
> In South Australia in the 1970s, Mr Ward taught my year 3/4 primary 
> class to count and add in trinary and convert back and forth to decimal. 
> We also learnt about sets, intersections and unions. I think it was 
> called "new maths" and was frowned upon by people at the time.
> 
I probably should have been more specific.  I was teaching the
"Chisenbop" students in 1978.  They typically were born in 1960.  They
probably learned their "Chisenbop" in 1968 or so.

Throughout that period of the US educational history there was lots of
experimentation on teaching the students math in different ways, and
some that were eventually abandoned altogether.

>From my view the issue is simple.  If you teach people the underlying
basics of what they are really doing the first time, then they can build
on that forever.  If you teach them a "short cut" or a "trick" or you do
not get the basic underlying principal across, it will come back to bite
you in the end.

If the current CS students in Australia know "bases" in math, then just
acknowledge it and go on.  If they do not, I recommend they learn it,
especially if they are CS students.

Warmest regards,

maddog