Who teaches whom: student teacher or student teacher?

Introduction

No, my post is not about Nikita Mikhalkov, as some might think, looking at the screenshots. I would like to tell the habrasoobshchestvo about methods of teaching IT disciplines on the example of several universities of one of the major cities in Russia from the perspective of a person who used to do what he wrote to order students of these universities for term papers and dissertations and worked closely not only with students and faculty, but also with employers. In parallel, this did not prevent me from studying in the same specialty related to IT and seeing the whole “system” with my own eyes from the inside. I have been reading Habr for about four years and noticed that many articles are written on it on the subject of education, but the university where I studied is different because I received several grants in the field of nanotechnology and cluster computing, so I’m happy to tell you about all the details popular topics on TV.
')
At the end of the article, I would also like to bring out some abstracts on the topic of education in IT, which will differ somewhat from generally accepted, to give you food for discussion in the comments, if of course it will be interesting to you ...


As you know, in Russian universities the best self-education in the world. After all, truly it is. And of course, this pattern is true not only in Russian, but also in the universities of the countries of the former USSR, at least as well. Of course, our otkatogreby and aypobloblyudtsy in the Ministry of Education always say that higher education is a pledge and guarantee of obtaining prestigious and well-paid work, but fortunately all sane people safely pass their statements past their ears and do the right thing.

In fact, if it comes down to it, then either the work is not really prestigious, or is not highly paid, or a diploma, be it red or pink, nobody really needs it, or there is no work at all. And it is becoming more and more true, not because of the crisis, but because there is a growing gap between the education that students receive and the real demands of the market.

Amazing thing. Most of my friends IT graduates complain that either there is no work or they pay very little. In turn, employers complain about the lack of qualified personnel. That is, it would seem that they are experts - take it, I do not want. But to take it in the end and no one. And to retrain-retrain expensive. In addition, many of those recruited have a so-called attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. This is a big problem for IT pros. For a long time I will not list the symptoms of who should find it, but their manifestations are known to all:

• absent-mindedness
• lack of punctuality
• extremely poor performance due to the desire to constantly switch between cases / applications / sites
• low digestibility of what they say (say: “create a database in XML”, and it will create it in MySQL and it will call the database “XML”).

Some short-sighted students, after graduating from higher education, think that they no longer need to develop further, because it is a higher education, that there is no place above. Especially those who received a red diploma. As a result, after finding a job, their ideals quickly collapse and a person gets such a negative attitude towards the future. Immediately appear neurosis and signs of self-doubt. Just at the same age and stage of life, when mood and motivation is one of the most important components. The parents are still with their “you have to get a job,” “we want you to go out in people and be like everyone else,” and so on. Parents are not always, by the way, explain that you can work, for example, at home. And that money can be not only real, but also virtual. And to turn one into another and back now is nothing.

Honestly, I really do not like the word "education". In medicine, by the way, it has a very unfavorable meaning. I propose to use the word "learning", it is somehow simpler and unique in itself.

But the matter in my opinion is not only in the students themselves and not in education. Let's try to find out the answers to the eternal two questions.

Who is guilty

And yet not students. First of all, parents, then teachers. Did someone say the state? Well, yes, I do not argue - there is a little. In general, it is always extreme in all problems.
From life:

• Friend number 1 : " I do not do business, because I am waiting for the state to simplify the registration of individual entrepreneurs ". Well, yes, five thousand is very difficult to spend, to pay a lawyer for registration. How to find a person to give a teacher a bribe - so you ask the entire university, and how to fill out the documents, so the “state is guilty.”
• Friend # 2 : " I do not do business, because I am waiting for the state to reduce taxes ." This is Vasya your friend said that taxes are large? We have not read the tax code, but we are already actively condemning it. Or at least comments to it for dummies looked. Half an hour of time, of course, is difficult to spend - I'm so busy, I need to watch TV or discuss with Vasya VKontakte or over a glass of beer which state is bad.
• Friend # 3 : " There are no jobs, because the state did not take care of them ." Well, what's stopping you in ten minutes to find out in Google which professions will be most in demand? Or in the end set a goal to become a competitive specialist? Do your education in the end, and not to sleep in lectures. Or the thing is that:
• Friend number 4 : " In the university we are poorly taught ." Well, yes, I agree. And you need to understand that the majority is there due to the fact that parents said that they definitely need a diploma. And what other sources of information there? This is the Internet and torrents. We are happy to find a new film there, but is the new training course somehow out of hand? You are my friend No. 4, have you ever heard of the concept of self-education? Who better to tell about the new technology - its developer in a free video lesson or teacher San Sanych? Who read a couple of books, and according to the law of meanness, not the most competent authors, and did laboratory work, copying everything from the Internet. And then for a few dozen of blood, or even hundreds of thousands of rubles of your parents, you retold all this to you? And then for the same money you will still have to prove to him on the exam that you are not a burdock. And just try to say something higher than what he taught - they will immediately write them into heretics and will blame them, saying: " Are you chtoli smarter than me? " ...

It so happened that by the time I entered the university, I had quite good success - second and third places respectively at the city and regional school olympiads in computer science (in fact, it all boiled down to programming). And I have already arrived there with a certain platform of knowledge and the desire to study further, unlike many others, who vaguely understood what programming is. Therefore, I had the opportunity not only to gain knowledge, but also to assess the competence of teachers.

One of the eminent and honored teachers of my university (professor of course) sincerely believed that console applications had a future. What is about .NET with Java will be transferred only to the console and that labor-specialists will be encoded only there. Quote: " What are there Windows Forms, what are there WPF, what are there SWT? This is already the last century. Therefore, laboratory students, gentlemen, you will be doing under the console ." Well, he would not give anything useful, so little more - he also misinforms.

I then dared to ask, what about multitouch, for example, on an iPhone (only he was then) or kinect, why isn't the future behind such devices and interfaces?
Answer: " Oh well, this is all the mischief! And there will be a console on the phones ."

Do you think the rest is better? Not much. There are of course exceptions in different universities. But as practice shows, they are very rare. The fact is simple - you want good competitive knowledge - in the university you have nothing to do. Is that if it is not a university like MSU or, say, HSE. I also had a very famous university. And to sense.

Also noteworthy is the fact that the university did not receive part of the funds from the amount of the grant announced by the state (as this phenomenon is called everyone already understood). The grant, by the way, was obtained thanks to an interesting project of a talented student, but not his teacher, although he was also given honors. The remaining money was supplied by a supercomputer (unfortunately I don’t remember how many flops), which still stands there almost without work. The department was obliged to investigate cluster computing, to deliver advanced software such as Oracle Grid Engine, Globus Toolkit, NorduGrid, UNICORE and to oblige students to deal with them. As you understand, in the report on use, which was transferred back to the state structures, the theoretical part of the Internet was copied by the teachers, and the students voluntarily-compulsory practice. Someone who teaches here is a whole question, which is why this is the title of this article.

Another case. The Department of Education of our city decided to make an information system for junior classes on the study of their performance. The project is by the way very reasonable and its description looked very interesting. It was created by a man who understood absolutely nothing about IT. Of course, they organized a state order for such a project, they said that if successful, they would distribute this product in schools for a fee. Of course, nobody wanted to hear about the existence of analogs. Also, no one wanted to hear that, according to the law, it was necessary to hold competitions between the respective companies, identify the contractor, coordinate the budget, etc. In fact, everything was decided this way - a person from the Department of Education turned to our university and a well-doing student instead of the subject of the diploma declared by her gave this project. That is, of course, not about any team of professionals, about any payment (probably, of course, something happened to the rector or dean), about any reasonable deadlines.

For the lack of sufficient knowledge and the impossibility of abandoning this project, this student, my friend, turned to me, so that I did it for a certain amount, which she paid me. Already then I left the university at my own request, as I was engaged in freelancing, and then already in high-paying work, and was, de facto, for this education management a complete stranger. However, very simply in two steps I, an ordinary mortal, turned out to be the executor of the state order. After I learned how such a thing could have happened, I, of course, was very indignant, as it was generally understandable - if most other state IT projects are carried out this way, and not only IT, then about any further development in this plan can not speak. Of course, due to the very short time it was necessary to neglect the quality, because the goal was primarily to help my friend pass the graduation project, and not to help bad people from the department of education.

Let's return to the guilty. Why is it that parents are to blame for low education? First, because they think that children are raised in a school / university, and they need to do this only in exceptional cases. What we get out of this we see well, for example, in some fairly realistic TV shows about school, for which the directors, by the way, are promised almost to be hanged, although they need to say thank you for the problem that has been raised and at least they are already talking about it. Secondly, on the other hand, parents were not taught how to be those parents who can properly raise a child.

Tell me how to influence such children here, and sometimes not quite children who love playing computer games all day and night so that they hit the keyboard and scream like shredded ones, if at least distract them? Does anyone know effective methods that can direct those in the right direction? Yes, of course, then this all goes away with some of them and even results in advantages, but this is rare.

I think very few people will now say that bans are an effective method. Let's imagine that here tomorrow negligent officials from the FSB will take and cut off all of us access to some popular sites in the internet? It does not matter how and whether it is possible at all. That there will be no torrents, no warez sites, no social networks, which are also full of paid video and music in free access? Then surely such a howl will rise throughout the country, which does not seem to be enough. How would you react in this case? Some, I think, responded as well as the children, videos with whom are dazzled on YouTube. After all, everyone is interested and funny as a cub in a fit of anger breaks the clave, because his farm VKontakte hung. Therefore, bans will not lead to anything good, despite the fact that there are many ways to circumvent the blockage of this business, IT professionals know that. Is that partial bans can be at least a little effective.

By the way, it is very sad to look at older people, supposedly wise with life, who say that young people are not the same. Socrates, by the way, also said so at the time. This has been happening from generation to generation for more than a dozen centuries. But no one actually took it and did not think why and how to fix it all. As if the children are to blame for what they are.

By the way, you can blame employers too. They can also, in cooperation with universities, organize training programs and suggest students how to organize training. The most popular otmaza from employers to the question “why the salary is low” is now very short: “Crisis”. Meanwhile, in more detail no one wants to explain. Therefore, of course, there is also a part of their fault, albeit a small one. In addition, in almost half of the cases when students come to get a job with them they speak in the style of “ All of you are none! Something is not pleasant - go to other companies ” and in similar more or less polite variations.

What to do

Self-education . Obviously, our sluggish education system cannot meet all the latest IT development trends. I am still being called by first-year students with a request to do one or another laboratory for some kind of payment - I send them already ready for free, because six years ago I did the same. You say that the first course can be taught the basics even in Pascal, at least in QBASIC? Partly agree. But after all, not only freshmen call, but also senior courses, where it would seem the best time to study new technologies at least at the very minimum level - in order to know what they all are. But so far there is also a price for both Turbo Pascal and C ++ Builder 6 version.

I give an excellent example of how seemingly complicated things can be presented in an interesting format. Official training courses widely known to all of us top IT companies are primarily based on demonstration of opportunities - that is, they transmit about the following message: " You used to spend a lot of time on it, now you can do it in a couple of clicks / a couple of lines of code. Isn't it great "Want to know how? See / read further ." And only then a person interested in the topic begins to study the rest, and at first glance it’s not the most interesting “rest”. Or goes to another topic. There are a lot of courses. Choose what you like.

By the way, official education, the majority of ours and not only our eminent IT experts do not, but there is experience, common sense and the desire to think outside the framework defined by regular education. And of course, the majority of their forecasts come true, unlike the teaching forecasts “for console applications of the future.” For example, an expert who creates a new area obviously cannot produce any documents on it, since he himself knows about such a field. A beard does not make a philosopher, nor does a diploma make an expert. A good score on a single state exam corruption is also, as you know, not an indicator.

It’s already a sin not to quote one expert: “Most of the training courses are focused on memorizing isolated facts, and not on learning patterns and systematic reflections on them. The time spent on memorizing one fact is approximately equal to the time it takes to understand a pattern, from which thousands of facts follow. ”

Do not think that I am about politics, I know that it does not belong to Habré. I am talking about the state in the key of education. Some people in the Ministry of Education are against such a system that will give a complete picture, rather than individual facts, because when a person can rationally think, it’s difficult to cram propaganda into it (read: a lie). However, such people dig their own grave. As a person with such an education is not dependent on propaganda, not only the government (reader: Surkovsky), but any other (hello to the State Department, yes). And the result is as in the phrase: " Rabbits - they really love each other very much. But it turns out - they were bred ." Nobody benefits from this - neither power nor people.

The results of such education, we can see now. I say just for example that the first comes to mind. Women's forums, which are full of 50 page topics, discussing the same statement of one hero of the same notorious house 2. Or the wholesale distribution of people, now called trolls. Where should they put their energy? Not in the training.

Habr, by the way, this disease is almost not affected, because people associated with IT can think rationally, because there it is, by definition, necessary. And not only for programmers.

findings

1. Stop complaining about the state / society / crisis / employer / teachers / parents / friends / stars and look at things sensibly. There are video tutorials, audio books, interactive applications, developer blogs, e-books, conferences, habrahabr in the end. Learn - I do not want. And all this for free. No registration and SMS. There are a huge number of advanced methods of knowledge, ranging from mental maps (MindMap), ending with reading comments to an interesting post on habrahabr.
2. If you study something, it is better to start not with a study of the basics, but with a study of possibilities. To look at something and say - I want also! You can always reach the basics, the main thing is to infect yourself with what is being studied. Of course, the old good tradition of writing the simplest “Hello World” should not be forgotten, but you should still try to write initial applications that are both simple and functional.
3. Work out your excuses and find ways to circumvent them. In the excuses often appear only speculation and not facts. I cited examples of such excuses from some of my friends above in the “who's to blame” subsection.

Ask yourself a few questions (just to give an example, what came up with the first one). It does not matter what questions - it is important what otmazy arise when you answer them:

1. Could I learn more effectively than I am studying now? If so, why not do it?
2. Could I get a better paying job? Why not? Or why yes, but not satisfied?
3. Are there any other ways to earn money besides working for an uncle?
4. Why can not I open my own business and earn at times more?
5. (not for everyone) Why have I been reading Habrahabr and great articles and comments from people for so long, but have not yet written my own interesting articles and comments?

I repeat, the answers themselves are not important. Important excuses that arise with these answers.