There is an ongoing debate on when children should be taught to code. There is one group of people which insists that computer programming is a lifelong skill, and is best taught early. The opposing argument is that coding is possibly a fad, and that children will learn it when they have to.
But what about data science? The field itself is less than 15 years old. Does it make sense to introduce it to children at an early age?
According to Rahul Raghavan, the guest on this episode, the answer is an overwhelming “yes”.
Rahul is a Montessori educator and founder of pep School v2, a Montessori school in Bangalore. Before getting into education, he was in the corporate world, working in impact investing (with VentureEast) and then with Amazon.
You can follow him on Twitter at @rahulrg
Show Notes:
00:02:55 - Introduction to the Montessori method
00:11:00 - How maths is taught differently in montessori?
00:21:45 - Introducing data science to chlldren
00:29:45 - Tossing coins, and playing cards
00:37:30 - Prerequisites to learning probability and data science
00:40:00 - Discrete maths and graph theory, going into random geekery
00:44:00 - Data visualisation for children
00:51:20 - How parents can introduce “data science” to children
Links:
Commentary on the viral video on “why should I learn maths?”
Florence Nightingale’s chart on causes of death in the Crimean War
Geometric intuition on how sqrt(2) + sqrt(3) is approximately equal to pi
Data Chatter is a podcast on all things data. It is a series of conversations with experts and industry leaders in data, and each week we aim to unpack a different compartment of the "data suitcase".
The podcast is hosted by Karthik Shashidhar. He is a blogger, newspaper columnist, book author and a former data and strategy consultant. Karthik currently heads Analytics and Business Intelligence for Delhivery, one of India’s largest logistics companies.
You can follow him on twitter at @karthiks, and read his blog at noenthuda.com/blog
