Programming in High School?

Hello,

I'm a student in High School, a Senior, and I want to do my senior project on having more programming classes in high school. I would like to get everybody's opinions on this matter, including if it should be done, and how it will affect people. The mor epeople who respond, the better, so please post!

Peter Calvin

*Note* - This is a reiteration of a previous thread. If an administartor would like to delete one, please delete the one with the title of 'Student, Senior' - I misunderstood, and could not correct that.

Programming would be great to offer at the high school level. You couldn't possibly offer a course that would be more rewarding for logic students than this course.

I don't think schools have the staff to teach these course. The biggest problem is the entire senority process. At my school, I'm a 6th year teacher with a degree in Comp. Sci and a heavy tech background prior to teaching. If my school were to offer the course, the 8 teachers that have senority over me would get first shot at teaching the course. Not a single one of the teachers even understands fully how to use Excel or basic Office applications. I highly doubt these people would benefit the students.

So, who teaches the program is most important? I've heard that computer programming teachers are hard to come by. Is there anyone here who is a programming teacher? Why do you teach at the schools you do? Coincidence, or do you like the area (home, beautiful, etc.), computer labs, pay, etc.?

I teach Web Scripting and C++. I have been teaching for the past 5 years. This is my second career, I retired out from IBM and got bored. Teaching gave me a purpose.

I love to teach, I feel like I am opening a new world to kids. I love to see them develop their own programs. It amazes me sometimes. I usually learn more about recent languages by going on a quest together with my students.

We have been play with Open source languages this year. I pair students together and their goal is to make a program that will be useful to others and possible receive payment for their work. We're in week 4 and kids did not know anything about scripting prior to walking in. I have two kids already making their own message board and two groups of kids that have been hired by the local government to do beta testing for them.

I know that teachers are teachers because they want to help kids, but what kind of jobs do you prefer? Do you like different areas better, such as cities vs. towns? (specifically for programming) What lanaguages are fun/good to teach, and which are not?