Jared Harrell // BuzzFeed News
Following his RFK award acceptance speech last night, Tim Cook this evening made a surprise appearance at Apple’s new Upper East Side retail store in New York. Apple is set to kick off its Hour of Code program in all of its retail stores tomorrow, but the Upper East Side store held its first session today.
Speaking to Mashable at the Apple Store, Tim Cook talked about education and how he believes the education system in America needs to be reinvented. For one, Cook believes that coding should be a required course in schools. ” I want to see coding be a required course like social studies, English, and mathematics in every public school curriculum,” Cook said. Asked whether or not Apple has voiced that opinion to public school system around the country, Cook said it had:
“Sure, I think there is lots of interest. Sometimes education doesn’t move as fast as any of us would like, but I think there are a lot of great teachers out there and a lot of great people out there who really want to improve the quality of education.”
Cook explained that the Hour of Code sessions produce engagement that you rarely ever see in classrooms. But Cook explained that the issue is keeping that engagement and inspiration alive when students leave the Apple Store and go home and go to school.
“Ultimately, the public school system and the parent has to provide,” Cook says. “What we’re trying to do is facilitate that… we selected 120 schools around the U.S. that are the most-needy schools. The bar that we drew was 97% of the students on free or reduced lunch [programs] and we’re working personally with them not just to bring in products, but bring in our people there, as well, to help teachers.”
Speaking to BuzzFeed News, Cook expressed his goal of wanting students, schools, and teachers alike to focus on learning, not on tests. Cook said that Chromebooks, which have recently been invading the education market in the Untied States, are nothing more than “test machines.”
Cook echoed this sentiment to Mashable, saying he’s not a fan of teaching to the test, but rather a fan of creativity, inspired learning, and learning how to express yourself.
“I’m not a fan of teaching to the test,” said Cook, “I think creativity is so important. Training the mind how to think is so important. Teaching to the test, to me, is too much about memorization. In a word where you’ve got all the information you’ve got right here,” Cook gestured to my iPhone, “your ability to memorize what year a war was won and all this kind of stuff isn’t very relevant. The classroom of the future is problem-solving and creating and learning how to express yourself.”
Last night, Cook again spoke on education while accepting the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights 2015 Ripple of Hope award. Cook explained of how many children are denied access to a quality education because of the zip code in which they live.
Image credit: Jared Harrell / BuzzFeed News
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Aright Tim, how about Apple then putting out an affordable laptop for k-12 schools, the iPad is only a solution for a certain segment of students and very few districts can afford a premium laptop, let alone dealing with damage and theft. Apple’s lack of interest in education gave the market to Chromebooks.
Tim Cook says something. Miserable Apple fans rush to say how wrong it is. Film at eleven.
Tim Cook is fundamentally wrong.
Chromebook’s are not powerhouses.
But they are affordable ways to introduce tech to school kids.
Make an affordable product for my district. We need every bit of financial help we can get. Tech superiority has a price that many can’t afford.
Seems as though public schooling always gets let off the hook for however reckless or poor they may be financially……
I am sorry, but Tim Cook and all the people that are in the high hierarchy of Apple need to start to go to real classrooms to know what they are talking about it. They are starting to remind me to the republicans when they talk about “America”. They live in a bubble. My school district just bought thousands of Chromebook because of the price and the lack of support by Apple with the iPads. You can’t buy a product that after two three years can’t use some of the apps that are in the market. I am just so tired of the snobbism that Apple is showing in the last years. Next, will be Tim Cook telling us -teachers- that if want to be creative we have to buy a Burberry’ whiteboard because the blackboards are for tests.
I’ve been teaching in Japan for 6 years – there technique is “teach to test”… Japan is known for getting good test marks and being intelligent BUT creativity, originality etc is all very limited… Students are as good as how much they can remember. They are often taught one way to do something, repeat repeat repeat, and taught only one right answer — they forget all the other ways and other possible answers (apparently this causes confusion)… when a method works, they stick to it…
Students can be creative in music – but again it is mostly mastering playing music, they dont often get to be original… the same with drawing, they aim to perfect a technique and stick to it… only a few break the mould and try other ways – but sadly they are often seen as people causing disruption…
So i agree that training students how to think, how to solve problems, how to be creative, how to find solutions are all very important and often not taught…
We often forget that although some students can sit there listening to the teacher and taking notes are perfectly content and able to learn, there are those of us who would much prefer to discuss, to practice, to be shown, etc etc…
Technology can certainly help in class — i have many japanese teachers that slap in a CD for students to listen to music and sing a long… where as I will come in with my laptop, hook it up to the TV, and play a music video with lyrics…
I don’t think an ipad is needed for all classes – they can be a huge distraction and problematic if someone forgets to charge, or the server goes down etc… I’m a strong believer that homework should be hand written, this is more personal and it means youve sat down to do it and not on a laptop with blue-light glaring at you, notifications popping up, and the temptation of the internet…this also makes people less reliant on spell check and the horrid auto-correct.
Personally i think ipad are easier to carry around, better for a more relaxed study session, better for reading digital textbooks – while offering internet, social, etc… a laptop is great for typing up documents etc, but i feel for a classroom is very limited – a laptop is better for the home.
Chromebooks i think are more limited… what would be better would be a surface. (best of both worlds and surface 3 is more affordable)
Hi! I’m a Japanese native (spending primary school years in England though), and I enjoyed your comment.
What you say makes a lot of sense from our perspective. I appreciate your understanding and thought.
Untied States?
If I didn’t know any better, I’d say that Tim Cook is laying the foundation for a career in politics – just like Howard Schultz, Mark Zukerberg, Larry Page, and Elon Musk.
Are Tech Jobs no longer exciting to where the CEOs feel the need to branch out into Politics?
If I didn’t know any better, I’d say that Tim Cook is laying the foundation for a career in politics – just like Howard Schultz, Mark Zukerberg, Larry Page, and Elon Musk.
Are Tech Jobs no longer exciting to them and they need to branch out into Politics?