Learning to Code vs Learning Computer Science
I find sorting algorithms a bizarre and damaging introduction to computer science.<p>If, as suggested, you ask an interested teenager how they sort a list of numbers on paper, they can usually give a reasonable algorithmic explanation, e.g.
"Find the smallest number in the list, and write that first,..."<p>Then, they have to throw that thought process away, and rote learn some different and esoteric alternative - the A-level course mentioned in this article requires you to execute bubblesort step-by-step, from memory, on paper.<p>When in fact, the teenager's own creative method (that we threw away) is much closer to how a computer scientist/coder should be thinking.