TITLE: What Is The Function Of School Today?
AUTHOR: Eugene Wallingford
DATE: July 19, 2016 10:32 AM
DESC:
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BODY:
Painter Adolph Gottlieb was dismissive of art school in the
1950s:
I'd have done what I'm doing now twenty years ago if I hadn't
had to go through that crap. What is the function of the art
school today? To confuse the student. To make a living for
the teacher. The painter can learn from museums -- probably
it is the only way he can to learn. All artists have
to solve their problems in the context of their own
civilization, painting what their time permits them to paint,
extending the boundaries a little further.
It isn't much of a stretch to apply this to computer programming
in today's world. We can learn so much these days from programs
freely available on GitHub and elsewhere on the web. A good
teacher can help, but in general is there a better way to learn
how to make things than to study existing works and to make our
own?
Most importantly, today's programmers-to-be have to solve their
problems in the context of their own civilization: today's
computing, whether that's mobile or web or Minecraft.
University courses have a hard time keeping up with constant
change in the programming milieu. Instead, they often rely on
general principles that apply across most environments but which
seem lifeless in their abstraction.
I hope that, as a teacher, I add some value for the living I
receive. Students with interests and questions and goals help
keep me and my courses alive. At least I can set a lower bound
of not confusing my students any more than necessary.
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(The passage above is quoted from
Conversations with Artists,
Selden Rodman's delightful excursion through the art world of
the 1950s, chatting with many of the great artists of the era.
It's not an academic treatise, but rather more an educated
friend chatting with creative friends. I would thank the
person who recommended this, but I have forgotten whose tweet
or article did.)
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