How to convince teachers to teach computer science even if informatics was never a part of their own studies

Abstract

Computer science is becoming a common, mandatory subject in curricula
of educational systems in ever more countries. The implementation is
everything, but simple. Computer science is the only subject that teachers
of primary schools have to teach, but never studied themselves. The widely
spread, but wrong idea that computer science is about using a computer
or about working with social media makes this process still more complicated,
with the risk that the next generation of teachers also does not get
proper training. In this article, we show how to explain the goals of computer
science education to the teachers in such a way that they understand
the contributions of computer science to the understanding of the world and
to the growth of intellectual abilities of their pupils, and that they focus on
teaching fundamental, and therefore stable concepts of informatics instead
of operating instructions for short-term applications. The following text is
an explanation and an oer to teachers who are experienced in teaching,
but do not have any idea what computer science is about, except that it has
“something to do with computers.”