Re: [Edu-sig] Programming in High School
At 02:37 PM 12/8/2008 -0500, Vern Ceder wrote: ... here are the reasons I see that more schools don't offer programming: 1) Lack of qualified staff. Sadly a graduate with a teaching certificate (as required by the state) usually doesn't have anything like the background to teach programming, let alone do the sorts of things that Kirby has experimented with. What we need then, is not programming teachers, but teachers who are enthusiastic about technology, and use programming as a tool. I would think any teacher of math or science would have no difficulty using Python and integrating it into their teaching. Don't teach it as a separate subject, but introduce each new statement as it is needed. For-loops, as an example, could be introduced as a tool to plot functions. The, when the students are comfortable with that (and if there is time), show them a whole new and more general way of looking at for-loops (for item in collection). I remember taking a class in typing. There was a lot of stuff on proper etiquette and formatting of business letters, and emphasis on speed and accuracy, but it was one of the most valuable classes I ever took. Do they still have something like that, maybe a business skills class? Python has a special role here, in that it doesn't require a big, focused effort, as would Java. 2) Numbers - at my school, 6-10 kids in AP Programming is considered a good year. In the public schools around town, in a short-sighted drive for efficiency, (but see item 1 above also) administration routinely kills any elective that can't get 3 times that. 3) The whole integration trend in tech in education - 15 years ago it was assumed that as technology became ubiquitous we wouldn't have to teach it, any more than you need to know about electricity to turn on a light. Of course, that analogy was bogus on both ends, but schools have moved in that direction anyway, killing what little programming they did have. Only now (and only very slowly) are they realizing that their students are the poorer for it. This fits with Paul's theme that we don't need programmers because it will all be done for us, or Guido's that only the best students should study programming. I was once asked by a shop teacher why I am still doing programming. Aren't all the programs already written? We need lots of examples where programming is useful to non-programmers. I already mentioned the real estate agent needing to digest some data from the property appraisers office. For the shop teacher: How about a homeowner wanting to lay tiles, avoid wastage, and slivers that look bad along the edge. If you know Python, it is quicker to write a little program than find one, purchase and install it, read the manual, struggle with a bunch of stuff you don't really need, and maybe not get what you want in the end. I can think of lots of examples in engineering, but they are not ordinary problems that would seem relevant to high school students. What we need is a collection of relevant problems, easily solved with a quickie program. These factors (and others of course) combined with the many layers of bureaucracy create a negative feedback loop that is next to impossible for students, teachers or even parents to beat. In fact, I've talked to state education officials that nearly despair of making any headway in some of our schools. I would think the Federal government could play a positive role in encouraging modernization of our curricula. Are there any proposals for the new administration? I'm thinking of an effort similar to what the Internet Security Alliance is now making in the area of infrastructure for a more secure computing environment. There is a whole new enthusiasm replacing the despair of the last few years. ___ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig
Re: [Edu-sig] Programming in High School
We need lots of examples where programming is useful to non-programmers. I already mentioned the real estate agent needing to digest some data from the property appraisers office. For the shop teacher: How about a homeowner wanting to lay tiles, avoid wastage, and slivers that look bad along the edge. If you know Python, it is quicker to write a little program than find one, purchase and install it, read the manual, struggle with a bunch of stuff you don't really need, and maybe not get what you want in the end. I can think of lots of examples in engineering, but they are not ordinary problems that would seem relevant to high school students. What we need is a collection of relevant problems, easily solved with a quickie program. Here is another suggestion: How about a program to predict stock prices? We'll need maybe 1000 traders, each responding to a dozen random external events. That will gives us a simple random walk around the mean. Now let's make it more interesting. Give each trader a herding tendency making it follow more closely what its nearest neighbors are doing. Turn up the herding coefficient and watch how it makes the market more erratic, ultimately turning random walk into boom and bust. ___ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig
Re: [Edu-sig] Programming in High School
I agree that finding relevant problems that are easily solved with a quickie program is hard to find. One idea I've been toying with at Stratolab from our programming coures is having a programming game to artificially create interesting quickie programs. How about Robot Wars of the past, but you are writing your robot's logic in Python? Each student writes a little program, drops them into a folder on the network. The teacher's computer is running an Arena / Simulation. It checks the folder and loads any programs there and starts the simulation. Robots that die get deleted from the folder so students have to rewrite it and drop new copies in to see if they survive. -Winston On Dec 10, 2008, at 12:12 PM, Warren Sande wrote: David MacQuigg wrote: We need lots of examples where programming is useful to non- programmers. I already mentioned the real estate agent needing to digest some data from the property appraisers office. For the shop teacher: How about a homeowner wanting to lay tiles, avoid wastage, and slivers that look bad along the edge. If you know Python, it is quicker to write a little program than find one, purchase and install it, read the manual, struggle with a bunch of stuff you don't really need, and maybe not get what you want in the end. I can think of lots of examples in engineering, but they are not ordinary problems that would seem relevant to high school students. What we need is a collection of relevant problems, easily solved with a quickie program. These are not so easy to find. For many of these types of problems, creating a spreadsheet is more efficient that writing a program. (Why re-invent the wheel?) One could argue that having more people know how to use Excel is a good thing and goes part of the way to having a population that's more savvy at computers/math/problem- solving. That's another discussion. But the criteria of relevant problems, easily solved with a quickie program is tough to meet. Not much gets through that filter. Problems that are relevant and complicated enough to be interesting usually require a moderately complex program to solve them. The non- programmer has to make at least some investment in learning the basics (variables, loops, control structures, operators, lists, I/O) before taking on even the simplest problem-solving using a program. So we need to convince people that it's: a) not that hard and b) worth it. Warren Sande. ___ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig Winston Wolff Stratolab - Computer Courses for Teens and Kids (646) 827-2242 - http://stratolab.com ___ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig
Re: [Edu-sig] Programming in High School
I would think any teacher of math or science would have no difficulty using Python and integrating it into their teaching. Don't teach it as a separate subject, but introduce each new statement as it is needed. Right. That's the strategy I thought would be most practical working within the constraints of our math curriculum. I decided against doing something like a Python intro at the beginning of the semester, as student schedules are in flux for the first couple of weeks. The pace of a typical math course makes it quite possible to introduce little bits of Python here and there. The only problem has been resistance on the part of students who didn't see why they had to spend time on this when their friends in other classes didn't. That, or they were concerned that this would 'confuse' them, and they were worried about their grade. Silly stuff. And then this silly stuff would require my having to explain to various people about what this is all about. However, a lot of that has faded, and some students are even asking if we could do more Python. So that's encouraging. There is a big contrast between doing math the traditional way, solving equations by manipulating symbols in some boolean assertion to isolate a variable, vs. thinking computationally - creating sets of functions to model concepts. Introducing this stuff eventually requires rethinking the whole curriculum. But one step at a time. - Michel On Wed, Dec 10, 2008 at 7:35 AM, David MacQuigg [EMAIL PROTECTED]wrote: At 02:37 PM 12/8/2008 -0500, Vern Ceder wrote: ... here are the reasons I see that more schools don't offer programming: 1) Lack of qualified staff. Sadly a graduate with a teaching certificate (as required by the state) usually doesn't have anything like the background to teach programming, let alone do the sorts of things that Kirby has experimented with. What we need then, is not programming teachers, but teachers who are enthusiastic about technology, and use programming as a tool. I would think any teacher of math or science would have no difficulty using Python and integrating it into their teaching. Don't teach it as a separate subject, but introduce each new statement as it is needed. For-loops, as an example, could be introduced as a tool to plot functions. The, when the students are comfortable with that (and if there is time), show them a whole new and more general way of looking at for-loops (for item in collection). I remember taking a class in typing. There was a lot of stuff on proper etiquette and formatting of business letters, and emphasis on speed and accuracy, but it was one of the most valuable classes I ever took. Do they still have something like that, maybe a business skills class? Python has a special role here, in that it doesn't require a big, focused effort, as would Java. 2) Numbers - at my school, 6-10 kids in AP Programming is considered a good year. In the public schools around town, in a short-sighted drive for efficiency, (but see item 1 above also) administration routinely kills any elective that can't get 3 times that. 3) The whole integration trend in tech in education - 15 years ago it was assumed that as technology became ubiquitous we wouldn't have to teach it, any more than you need to know about electricity to turn on a light. Of course, that analogy was bogus on both ends, but schools have moved in that direction anyway, killing what little programming they did have. Only now (and only very slowly) are they realizing that their students are the poorer for it. This fits with Paul's theme that we don't need programmers because it will all be done for us, or Guido's that only the best students should study programming. I was once asked by a shop teacher why I am still doing programming. Aren't all the programs already written? We need lots of examples where programming is useful to non-programmers. I already mentioned the real estate agent needing to digest some data from the property appraisers office. For the shop teacher: How about a homeowner wanting to lay tiles, avoid wastage, and slivers that look bad along the edge. If you know Python, it is quicker to write a little program than find one, purchase and install it, read the manual, struggle with a bunch of stuff you don't really need, and maybe not get what you want in the end. I can think of lots of examples in engineering, but they are not ordinary problems that would seem relevant to high school students. What we need is a collection of relevant problems, easily solved with a quickie program. These factors (and others of course) combined with the many layers of bureaucracy create a negative feedback loop that is next to impossible for students, teachers or even parents to beat. In fact, I've talked to state education officials that nearly despair of making any headway in some of our schools. I would think the Federal government could play
Re: [Edu-sig] Programming in High School
2008/12/10 michel paul [EMAIL PROTECTED]: SNIP There is a big contrast between doing math the traditional way, solving equations by manipulating symbols in some boolean assertion to isolate a variable, vs. thinking computationally - creating sets of functions to model concepts. Introducing this stuff eventually requires rethinking the whole curriculum. But one step at a time. - Michel Yes Michel, but let's remember schoolish math isn't necessarily what the pros are doing to earn a living, with Mathematica, MathCad or whatever. Lots of degree holders in mathdom spend half their time talking to coders with humanities degrees like me, explaining what outputs from what inputs, in terms of algorithms per Knuth, i.e. the stuff you learn in K-12 isn't computer poor because of anything to do with real world mathematics in practice. The way I might do it in Portland (write ups in blogs) is take what we'd consider an advanced, college level theorem, such as Fermat's Little (not Last), and use Python to verify what it asserts, not the same thing as proving. What I say often @ Math Forum is something like: before you prove a theorem, you need to know what it means, i.e. you need to care. Having field applications helps motivate caring. We might not ever get to the proof in this class (heresy!) as these are underclassmen looking to understand RSA, haven't chosen to become mathematicians. What's so cool about Python is pow(2, 22, 23) is so easy to write and explain (no import required), whereas on a calculator you get digit overflow most the time, because of the overly small LCDs, hamster-brained programs (not open source). Per my Chicago talk, OSCONs before it, Texas Instruments is our only real competition in this picture in a business case sense, though fear of snakes (per 'Snakes on a Plane') is probably the biggest psychological barrier. North Americans are especially superstitious about snakes, owing to their making Eve do something bad in the Bible (what was it again?). Ruby has an edge in that sense (less charged) -- but then we have a Flying Circus, which helps a lot. We basically invite kids to fill in the form: pow(2, prime - 1, prime) and verify that they always get 1 for an answer. Then comes the tricky part: does that mean that if pow(2, n-1, n) returns 1, that n must be prime? Having verified it's true for like a gazillion primes, the overly casual thinker might say sure!. But of course this is a logical pitfall. if a then b does not support b therefore a. That's where we talk about Carmichael numbers, look them up on the web (OEIS). Fermat's Little is a special case of Euler's more general one about totients (lots of fun Python), in turn critical for getting RSA to work (per Knuth). All before college, looks good on your application (that you went to this cutting edge Quaker school or whatever). Kirby 4D ___ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig
Re: [Edu-sig] Programming in High School
On Mon, Dec 8, 2008 at 6:57 AM, David MacQuigg [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Kirby, This is very well written appeal, but in this mailing list, you may be preaching to the choir. What I would like to see is a discussion of *why* there is not more teaching of programming in high school. I can't seem to get an answer from the few high-school teachers and students I have asked. I suspect it has something to do with requiring all kids to have their own computers, not wanting the rich to have an advantage over the poor, etc. I've thought about teaching high school myself, but the bureaucracy seems overwhelming. It is a much more systemic problem than that. I put a lot of blame on the anti-intellectual forces in society that want education dumbed down so that they can lie to their own children, and then to the general public that grows up on this pablum. The fundamental problem is the insistence on factory-style efficiency in education, a trend started by Prussia in the 18th century. The result is that schools nearly always teach only material for which there is an official right answer, while in real life, whether business, government, the arts, or politics, all of the interesting questions have no right answer. The education of teachers was also radically dumbed-down in the Prussian system. Teachers were expected to know no more than was in the textbooks they would teach from, except at the highest levels in research universities. In this view of society, those who needed to deal with the unanswered questions on a daily basis (other than scientists and engineers) were to be children of the elite class who could afford to send them to private schools to receive an entirely different sort of education. The sort of exceedingly unpleasant system for generating leaders within an Empire that Kipling described in Stalky Co. http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Academy/6422/rev0882.html The Prussian system was put in place by a King who wanted a compliant public that would make no attempt to interfere in his planning of the next war, and by a right-wing Calvinist church movement that the King preferred over the more liberal-minded Lutherans. _All_ of the Imperial powers and the churches and business interests that supported them supported this system for public education at home and abroad. Japan and the State Shinto authorities particularly loved the German educational system. Plus ça change, plus ç'est la même chose. To come back to programming, what we have had since the introduction of personal computers in the 1970s has not been programming but so-called computer literacy, in which children might get as much as an hour or two a week in the computer lab. As an immediate consequence, nothing they learned about computers, or from using computers, could have any relevance to the curriculum. It is only now, with the advent of one-to-one computing, that we can even think of addressing this problem. If we compare the computer literacy approach to programming with the actual idea of literacy, we see that what we have been doing is pretending to think we are teaching reading and writing if we have one room in a school with 30 pencils and pads of paper, but no library, and we let kids practice handwriting for as much as an hour a week. But not at home, or in public, no of course not. But what would schools do with programming in a one-to-one computing environment? Well, I predict that if left to themselves, they would mess it up as badly as we mess up literacy, or math and science, or indeed any subject today. We only let students have access to an utterly boring and stultifying version. It is just like exposing children to killed or attenuated viruses in order to make them immune to those viral diseases. Our schoolbooks contain nothing like the versions of any of these fields that made the practitioners fall in love with the possibilities enough to put forth the effort to master some part of it, and our schools make far too many children immune to learning anything ever again. Earth Treasury has just recently, actually just yesterday, come to the conclusion that we are ready to rethink the notion of a textbook, and to rework the curriculum from top to bottom, in order to integrate Free Software into every aspect of every subject. Some things in education actually take place in the material world, of course, including gym, manual training, art, and music. Even there, the computer is an important tool. Think of all of the computerized athletic training and analysis systems of Olympic athletes and the pros; or of CAD/CAM; or digital art and electronic music. The occasion yesterday was the Program for the Future conference at the Tech Museum (San Jose CA), Adobe Systems, and Stanford, and the celebration of the 40th anniversary of Doug Engelbart's Mother of All Demos (look it up and watch the video), which laid the foundations for all modern user interfaces, and much else in software engineering, innovation
Re: [Edu-sig] Programming in High School
On Wed, Dec 10, 2008 at 1:57 PM, Edward Cherlin [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: SNIP The occasion yesterday was the Program for the Future conference at the Tech Museum (San Jose CA), Adobe Systems, and Stanford, and the celebration of the 40th anniversary of Doug Engelbart's Mother of All Demos (look it up and watch the video), which laid the foundations for all modern user interfaces, and much else in software engineering, innovation support, and more. We have come nowhere near realizing it all. I talked with Doug, with Alan Kay (of Dynabook, Smalltalk and GUI fame) of Viewpoints Research Institute and with Mike Linksvayer from Creative Commons (look up their cc:Learn project) yesterday, and with Sugar Labs, FLOSS Manuals, and Open Learning Exchange before that, and they are all ready to talk about how we can do all this. So let me know about any subject and age range you want to work on. This seemed an eloquent essay Edward, love poking fun at those Prussians, aka control freaks par excellance. Makes me start humming bars from Pink Floyd (hey, teacher...) just thinking about it. Safe to say, much time has elapsed and for all the whining we hear from constructivists, as if their way had never been tried, it has been, with mixed results, which is to say we've had many success stories, generations of geek reared on Dr. Spock, Vulcan Spock and beyond, given microscopes, computers, free reign, lots of adulation in school, quite the opposite of the Prussian philosophy. Result: Apple Computer, Silicon Valley, Silicon Forest i.e., thanks to the long-ago demise of top-down authoritarian thinking in some circles, we have some thriving subcultures on planet Earth where the mind runs free, bringing good things to life (GE slogan), making the world a better place etc. etc. The question is: how to spread the love? My approach is to leverage local strengths, Portland's good ats, and that's a pretty long list, including cartoon-making, music, comedy and, yes, teaching Python at a level most cities can't match, thanks to me, but also thanks to a lot of people, many unsung (so far). Tim Bauman comes to mind (one of my proteges, aka Ki Master George). Jason certainly (a fine teacher of SQL Alchemy and like that). Allison Randall, Damien Conway, R0ml, Ravencroft... a lot of us, right here on this list. I'm not saying all of these celebs live in PDX, just that there's reason to hope that we're not just now, at long last, emerging from the dark ages, as if Prussia had just folded yesterday. No, we've been enjoying the fresh air for a few generations now, and are ready to bring it on as one recent president put it (meaning something else maybe, always hard to decipher that guy, study Dan Quayle as a primer maybe?). Guido's CP4E was a continuation of a noble tradition, Alan Kay in the lineage, or Kenneth Iverson in my case (I encountered Alan much later, long after I'd fallen in love with APL at Princeton, Alan then in his kill Smalltalk slayer chapter (more in this archive)) I think the right approach is to think in terms of an svn tree, i.e. a trunk with many branches. We're *not* all converging to the same page (this won't be Prussia again, don't worry). Some of us, like me, will probably use J quite a bit, because of the APL heritage. Others will use Scheme / LISP, that Big Lambda family (Python's is little lambda). It's not about finding the one right way to do it (Prussian fallacy) but rather one of encouraging local faculties to seize control of their own destinies and not wait for big publishers to show them how it's done. We already have Cut the Knot, Mathworld, gazillions of math-oriented YouTubes. We're awash in relevant curriculum materials. The last time I said anything about Kusasa (which was quite awhile ago), it was to suggest there was no need for any new curriculum writing whatsoever, just people need time to catch up, process what's already out there. Of course that's a pretty stupid thing to say to a bevy of curriculum writers rarin' to go, but I think you see my point anyway. There's a documentary on Britney Spears on my TV at the moment, gotta run. She's one of those music millennium geeks I really appreciate these days, love how she figures into our circus, no dummy that gl. http://mybizmo.blogspot.com/2008/10/pythonic-math.html Kirby ___ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig
Re: [Edu-sig] Programming in High School
Daniel Ajoy schrieb: But the criteria of relevant problems, easily solved with a quickie program is tough to meet. ... And another point is that some problems cannot be solved using algebra or trig. I believe this is one: http://neoparaiso.com/logo/problema-triangulos.html It asks the student to determine the values of the segments a and b. This is a nice problem, which could also find an easy solution in Python, not only in Logo, of course ;-) Like the on attached one, for instance. I'd only like to add a few remarks to the problem discussed in this thread - which I also know very well as a high school teacher in Vienna, Austria. (1) One root of the problem seems to be that whatever relevant problem we pose, there are *a lot* of different adequate tools to approach it in these modern times and it is by no means clear that programming is the 'natural' approach. See for instance http://www.rg16.at/~glingl/triangle/ for a different solution to Daniel's problem. (2) To profit from beeing able to program needs continuous practice. So as a teacher of a math class you had to convince *all* of your students to do it continually. (3) This - at least here in Austria - seems to be impossible as long as programming is not part of the official math curriculum (like for instance the appropriate use of a pocket calculator). Even core math is not done by *all* students on their own free will, because they enjoy it, or they are interested in it, but by some of them often only because they *need* it for their gradutation. And I suppose that programming will never be part of the standard curriculum, even if only because only a small part of the maths teachers are proficient in programming. So they naturally would oppose such a change. (4) Moreover it seems to me, that even in the area of computer science or computer technology the part which is occupied by programming is getting smaller. 25 years ago, if you wanted to do some interesting things with a computer, you *had* to be able to program, while nowadays there are so many interesting things you can do without programming. For instance what do you think, which part of the people working in the comuter game industry are programmers? I suppose, this trend also diminishes the young people's interest in programming (as well as the school authorities interest in putting programming into the mainstream curricula.) (5) Despite all of this I'd also like to contribute a problem, I stumbled over yersterday, incidentally. It might not be 'relevant' but it's also one that most probably couldn't be solved without computers and which without doubt has the potential to stimulate the student's interest in math as well as computing: Christian Goldbach (1690-1783), stated several number theoretical conjectures, among them the famous Goldbach conjecture, concerning the set of even numbers 2. An other (similar) one is the following: every odd positive integer could be written in the form p + 2*a**2, where p is a prime (or 1, then considered a prime) and a =0 is an integer. Example: 23 = 5 + 2*3**2 (to use Python notation). Euler checked this conjecture for odd numbers up to 2500 and he didn't find a counter example. Only a century later two counter examples were found in the range below 1. What are these two numbers? The curious thing is, that to this day these two numbers remain the only ones found. Regards Gregor Daniel ___ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig # Daniel Ajoys triangle problem # from Edusig, 10. 12. 2008 from turtle import * def triangle(wx): penup(); home(); pendown() forward(130) left(180-38) forward(wx) setheading(180 + towards(0,0)) forward(70) right(180-101) forward(88) #stamp() return ycor() setup(500,250) mode(world) reset() fd(250) triangle(80) triangle(50) # no-frills graphical solution # of course one could play around with colors etc... wx1 = 80 wx2 = 50 epsilon = 0.1 while True: wx = (wx1 + wx2)/2.0 y = triangle(wx) if abs(y) epsilon: print Solution:, wx break if y 0: wx1 = wx else: wx2 = wx setworldcoordinates(190, -2.5, 200, 2.5) write(str(pos())+ for wx = + str(wx)) ___ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig
Re: [Edu-sig] Programming in High School
Re outsourcing, here I am in the capital of open source (Portland, per Christian Science Monitor that time -- San Jose uncomfortable with that, stealing back OSCON -- OK, OK, their turn, we agree), and yet when push comes to shove, there's a rather tiny geek culture. I find myself advising Symmetric to check with Aiste's POV in Vilnius, as one of the more qualified shops, as we start scraping the bottom of our barrel. Jason got snatched away by idealist.org, whereas some others don't have much experience, e.g. insist on working solo. So I completely empathize with Intel, needing engineers from elsewhere. South Africa a good source. It's not that I think Oregonians are stupid, just they've been sold a bill of goods by the ETS army, made to jump through irrelevant hoops to the point of ridiculousness, leaving good jobs going begging. That's why we have Saturday Academy, to track at least a few talented kids into a relevant curriculum for a change, no more of this pablum. Not every city is so lucky. Not every city has our Silicon Forest (which extends northward to embrace Seattle, the Space Needle one of our branding tools). Anyway, looking forward to Chicago. I've been thinking how corporate trainers such as myself might inject a note of hilarity in adult settings, even while staying on task with the Python. Turns out that's easy: Flying Circus to the rescue. We do little skits. Here's a sample in my blog: http://mybizmo.blogspot.com/2008/12/car-czar.html Kirby ___ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig
Re: [Edu-sig] Programming in High School
David MacQuigg wrote: What ever happened to the original enthusiasm with Computer Programming for Everyone? If everyone with a high school diploma knew how to write a simple program, not only would we be more productive, but we would understand the world better. Instead of loose talk and isolated numbers, the news would show us charts. The general public, not just experts, would have seen the very obvious bubble growing in the housing market, and could see now where we are on the down side. What if the average real estate agent could show me the price trends on property similar to what I am looking at. Instead, I have to dig out the data myself, and plot it in Excel. Then when I show her the result, she still doesn't see the significance. Many years ago someone said (probably Kirby, and probably on this list) essentially that while computing is taught in school as if it were a subset of schoolish math, it's really more true that schoolish math is a subset of computing. Obviously, real knock-your-socks-off math subsumes *everything*, as in physics is a subset of math in a way, but that is not the case either in most K-12 schools. And even then, the lines between computing and math are starting to blur, as even modern physicists now spend a lot of time with their computer simulations that their base equations. So, I feel from a practical point of view, computing should be introduced as early as possible in education (perhaps after, say age seven and kids get the real world at an intuitive level), and learning to do schoolish math (including algebra, trigonometry, logical proofs of correctness, and so on) should flow from that. And, for example, you can then link things like physics, chemistry, and biology (and even English and history) into a computer base curriculum using simulation and data acquisition. On the larger issue: David MacQuigg also wrote: At 06:52 PM 12/8/2008 -0800, Guido van Rossum wrote: On Mon, Dec 8, 2008 at 5:10 PM, David MacQuigg [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: At 03:30 PM 12/8/2008 -0800, michel paul wrote: I think part of the problem in the past has been the misunderstanding about tech jobs getting outsourced. I've heard people say there's no point in becoming a programmer, because all the jobs are going overseas. It's really kind of silly. Stated that way, it does seem circular. I've heard it stated more convincingly by an EE prof to a class of undergrads. If you go into engineering, you will be facing layoffs. Imagine the effect of that expectation on smart students who see their buddies going into law or medicine, and getting more pay and more respect than engineers. It's no wonder there are almost no US students in our graduate classes. I've thought about what I would have said to those students. It would be more like If money is your major motivation, find another profession. If technology is in your blood, stay with it. Learn everything you can. The money will come out OK. I read this as: Engineering is something where mediocrity doesn't pay. Doctors and lawyers are like cobblers, their output is limited by the number of hours they can work, so there is room for good solid workers who aren't particularly innovative. Engineering at its best is not like that at all. It's a field whose main *point* is to make manual labor redundant. Good engineers do their work because it's their passion. The rest... Well they can always try to earn a living cranking out Java code. ;-) I'm a bit uncomfortable with the idea that engineering is a field where only the brightest should feel comfortable. There is plenty of need for good solid workers, and I would like to see our schools and our economy support that. If we outsource the grunt work, and hope to keep just the top geniuses employed, eventually we lose the top also. I remember in the 80's thinking the Japanese could never catch up with us in circuit design. They just didn't have the creative spark. It wasn't in their culture. On this general topic of the cultural context of engineering education, here a few ideas about historical trends, and one speculation based on projecting things forward a couple decades from what Guido said elsewhere. After WWII, the USA was the only significant manufacturing power. Europe and much of Aisa were either in rubble, social turmoil, or both. The Southern hemisphere still had little infrastructure too. So, it could be expected that the manufacturing base in the USA would grow as it made stuff for the world, and like China today, this would be a good position to be in, having the world depending on it for stuff. But over the decades, this unusual situation has shifted, and while the USA still sells a lot of manufactured goods, as the world has rebuilt in some places and developed industrially in others, a more normal situation is reestablishing itself. Culturally, it is true that different places have different strengths and weaknesses,
Re: [Edu-sig] Programming in High School
I like schoolish math, will plan to recycle that. As for the rest of it, trademark Paul F. in being so verbose, will leave it to other analysts to summarize it for me this time. Good seein' ya Paul. For those wishing to lurk on my inner doings (acting locally in Portland), I refer you to this URL: http://mail.python.org/pipermail/portland/2008-December/000524.html (my public regrets to a big party tonight, Python and other groups, keeping Portland spirit alive...) Kirby ___ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig
Re: [Edu-sig] Programming in High School
I think you're spot on about the advantage over the poor thing, as our stronger public schools have a parent base that will fund and support Linux labs, whereas where my daughter goes, they can't afford enough chairs for the cafeteria, everyone has to spill out into Burgerville and Wendy's for some reason, fancy that (maybe some programming involved, some proprietary source we don't see?). But in Portland, it's a given that Linux is woven into our culture. We have theatrical events around open source (e.g. Ignite...! at the Bagdad) http://upcoming.yahoo.com/event/872418/ Torvalds lives here. We're the capital of open source, or is that Oregon City? So yeah, Portland is a rich city, very little sign of any economic downturn, lots of starving in the hinterlands per usual, because a lot of us learned a callous, neglectful, neo-Malthusian economics in public school, as that's what our grandfather's fathers thought made the most sense (Malthus was a London School of Economics geek, did his best to play world game without Google Earth, poor slob). My plan is to fly to Chicago and help bring those midwesterners up to speed, on the assumption my counterparts back east are handling New York, HQS of our BFI and so on. Actually, it's much smaller potatoes, not renting that blimp, just chatting with my peers, already on the inside in education (met a lot of you last year), and well position to help with the steering, keeping us moving towards a brighter tomorrow, wherein kids learn that math is an extensible type system and have Python right there on their desktops (with tons of other fun toyz), to drive that point home. My co-conspirators on this one are Steve Holden, a Gandalf in Python Nation (very high rank), and Ian Benson (some kind of Elf? -- not one of ours quite, sociality.tv ). These are both highly skilled guys (XY) and it's a real privilege to work with 'em, brings some balance to my day jobs, where I mostly work with highly skilled gals (XX). My HR chief, Suzanne, is like the smartest person alive, and Wicca wise (senior partner for whom DWA is named, my partnership, files and IRS 1065, business alias 4D Solutions per US Bank records, 4D Studios another moniker... I could go on). I guess my advice to the Obama team would be to avoid any one size fits all attempts to converge to some national curriculum like many do in Europe. Each of the 50 states needs breathing room and none of them need Washington DC to be bossing them around like they're slaves of some central know-it-all. We're a Federation, and this was never a monarchy. This is even more pronounced in my case for example, out here on the west coast. My reality includes such as Angel of the Winds, Spirit Mountain... Kahneetah, huge IT centers with state of the art software, leave Google in the dust in terms of sophistication in some ways. All very proprietary though, you'll probably never see the inside of these IT temples unless you get the tour before they open (how Mormons do it). Yes, I'm talking casinos, strategically positioned within semi-sovereign nations that reinvest profits rather wisely, and for the long haul, earning lots of community good will -- an economic asset even in troubled times. In sum, I feel confidant that the Silicon Forest has much to offer the Chicagoans, plus I was actually born there, so it's like another homecoming for me (only got into the city once last year, Pycon being in the outskirts, near O'Hare, still managed to miss my plane though, ended up driving all night with GPS to find Indiana, Pennsylvania where Jimmy Stewart was from). http://www.imdb.com/name/nm071/ Kirby On Mon, Dec 8, 2008 at 6:57 AM, David MacQuigg [EMAIL PROTECTED]wrote: Kirby, This is very well written appeal, but in this mailing list, you may be preaching to the choir. What I would like to see is a discussion of *why* there is not more teaching of programming in high school. I can't seem to get an answer from the few high-school teachers and students I have asked. I suspect it has something to do with requiring all kids to have their own computers, not wanting the rich to have an advantage over the poor, etc. I've thought about teaching high school myself, but the bureaucracy seems overwhelming. At 11:37 AM 12/6/2008 -0800, kirby urner wrote: ... As such a manager, I'm frustrated with the schooling around here, but rather than just whine and complain, I get access to classrooms and start showing off how it might really be done, were those of my breed allowed to interact with the kids (rarely happens, rules prevent -- even though I've been cleared at the state level to work with kids, with fingerprinting and everything, same as any union teacher). But among peers, fellow geeks, this is more just an excuse to tell some company war stories, share Python source, and enjoy the science fiction feeling of being in a culture that *we* had designed, rather than muggles, i.e. those who don't know
Re: [Edu-sig] Programming in High School
At 08:22 AM 12/8/2008 -0800, kirby urner wrote: I think you're spot on about the advantage over the poor thing, as our stronger public schools have a parent base that will fund and support Linux labs, I've also heard the argument that most kids will never be programmers ... missing the point that the important learning experience is a way of thinking, not the skill at a particular language. You never know when a poor kid might become somebody important. ... I guess my advice to the Obama team would be to avoid any one size fits all attempts to converge to some national curriculum like many do in Europe. Each of the 50 states needs breathing room and none of them need Washington DC to be bossing them around like they're slaves of some central know-it-all. We're a Federation, and this was never a monarchy. I wonder if Obama has any ability in computer thinking. He will need it if he is going to referee all the experts he has swarming around him. I see some underlings in the Department of Homeland Security, frustrated after years of laissez-fair, have formed an Internet Security Alliance, and are pushing for major involvement by the Feds. This could be good if Obama understands what they are saying, or bad if he can't distinguish between good advice and glib nonsense. Let's hope Vint Cerf can keep him on the right track. On Mon, Dec 8, 2008 at 6:57 AM, David MacQuigg mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED][EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Kirby, This is very well written appeal, but in this mailing list, you may be preaching to the choir. What I would like to see is a discussion of *why* there is not more teaching of programming in high school. I can't seem to get an answer from the few high-school teachers and students I have asked. I suspect it has something to do with requiring all kids to have their own computers, not wanting the rich to have an advantage over the poor, etc. I've thought about teaching high school myself, but the bureaucracy seems overwhelming. At 11:37 AM 12/6/2008 -0800, kirby urner wrote: ... As such a manager, I'm frustrated with the schooling around here, but rather than just whine and complain, I get access to classrooms and start showing off how it might really be done, were those of my breed allowed to interact with the kids (rarely happens, rules prevent -- even though I've been cleared at the state level to work with kids, with fingerprinting and everything, same as any union teacher). But among peers, fellow geeks, this is more just an excuse to tell some company war stories, share Python source, and enjoy the science fiction feeling of being in a culture that *we* had designed, rather than muggles, i.e. those who don't know what SQL means, even after enduring like four years of mathematics pre-college (not they're fault -- SQL doesn't make it past the relevance filters, gotta learn more about factoring polynomials, like you'll need on the job (snicker)). What if circus performers designed your gym class? It wouldn't be like it is. What if Pythonistas taught your junior how to program math objects, like vectors and polynomials. Why, he'd grow up employable, ready to rumble, ready for work, maybe without even going to college right away (that could come later, on the company's dime maybe). As a parent, you'd be pleased. Finally, junior is excited about hard fun, programs just for the love of it (pretty freakish). ... Kirby Urner 4Dsolutions.net ___ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig
Re: [Edu-sig] Programming in High School
David, Here's my small nugget of experience: My son goes to a prep school in southern CA, and when we met with his adviser at the end of 8th grade last spring to plan out his high school curriculum, I was floored to learn that there were no computer science classes offered at all anymore. Here's the reasoning the adviser gave for the dropping of the computer courses: The College Board is eliminating the advanced level AP exam for computer science. (There are two exams, Computer Science A and Computer Science AB. AB is being discontinued after 2009. Both use Java, by the way.) And why is the higher level exam being eliminated? Because not enough people take it. And here's my philosophical take on the larger issue: My personal opinion on computer language learning in high school is that it's not going to happen until something else is eliminated from the curriculum. And what needs to be eliminated is foreign languages. If that rubs you the wrong way, just hear me out. Most students are forced to take two or three years of a foreign language and come away with precious little for their efforts. Very few can speak it intelligibly or comprehend even simple conversations. And the bulk of what they do learn fades quickly from memory. In my opinion, we still force students to do this despite the failure rate in terms of actually learning the language because (1) we believe students are learning about a foreign *culture* in their foreign language classes, and (2) they're doing a type of logical calisthenics. But learning culture through language is like learning geography through travel. It results in a deeper understanding, yes, but it's way, way too inefficient. Foreign cultures can and should be taught directly. As for the logical work out, foreign languages have much too large a lexicon and are way too laden with exceptions for that. Their study quickly devolves into memorization hell. Computer languages, on the other hand, are small, have limited exceptional behavior, and are imminently useful. Two or three serious years of study in high school would make most students fluent enough in a language to use it in a job setting, not to mention the ability to pick up other computer languages, and to have much better problem solving skills in general. Plus, every compiler/interpreter is a native speaker eagerly waiting to correct their syntax. Required foreign language study made sense when learning the classics in their native tongues constituted being educated. Those days are long gone. So, to summarize, I believe the plan of attack needs to focus on opening up a hole in the high school curriculum for computer languages to squeeze into, and the foreign language study slot seems to be the right fit. At the very least, it needs to have the same status as Latin (how sad is that?), an option at some high schools for students who don't want to learn a modern day language. Mark On Mon, Dec 8, 2008 at 6:57 AM, David MacQuigg [EMAIL PROTECTED]wrote: Kirby, This is very well written appeal, but in this mailing list, you may be preaching to the choir. What I would like to see is a discussion of *why* there is not more teaching of programming in high school. I can't seem to get an answer from the few high-school teachers and students I have asked. I suspect it has something to do with requiring all kids to have their own computers, not wanting the rich to have an advantage over the poor, etc. I've thought about teaching high school myself, but the bureaucracy seems overwhelming. At 11:37 AM 12/6/2008 -0800, kirby urner wrote: ... As such a manager, I'm frustrated with the schooling around here, but rather than just whine and complain, I get access to classrooms and start showing off how it might really be done, were those of my breed allowed to interact with the kids (rarely happens, rules prevent -- even though I've been cleared at the state level to work with kids, with fingerprinting and everything, same as any union teacher). But among peers, fellow geeks, this is more just an excuse to tell some company war stories, share Python source, and enjoy the science fiction feeling of being in a culture that *we* had designed, rather than muggles, i.e. those who don't know what SQL means, even after enduring like four years of mathematics pre-college (not they're fault -- SQL doesn't make it past the relevance filters, gotta learn more about factoring polynomials, like you'll need on the job (snicker)). What if circus performers designed your gym class? It wouldn't be like it is. What if Pythonistas taught your junior how to program math objects, like vectors and polynomials. Why, he'd grow up employable, ready to rumble, ready for work, maybe without even going to college right away (that could come later, on the company's dime maybe). As a parent, you'd be pleased. Finally, junior is excited about hard fun, programs just for the love of it (pretty freakish). ...
Re: [Edu-sig] Programming in High School
On Mon, Dec 8, 2008 at 11:26 AM, David MacQuigg [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: At 08:22 AM 12/8/2008 -0800, kirby urner wrote: I think you're spot on about the advantage over the poor thing, as our stronger public schools have a parent base that will fund and support Linux labs, I've also heard the argument that most kids will never be programmers ... missing the point that the important learning experience is a way of thinking, not the skill at a particular language. You never know when a poor kid might become somebody important. Exactly right. It was never about becoming a pro programmer for me, any more than learning how to drive means you're planning on becoming a chauffeur for a living, even if some of us do. These choices come later. What's important at the secondary level is to keep doors open, and that includes showing off geek subcultures as potentially attractive, having a footprint for recruiting purposes. We'll not take a back seat to the pro mathematicians, who apparently obsess about parabolas, think integration by parts is the bees knees (go figure). ... I guess my advice to the Obama team would be to avoid any one size fits all attempts to converge to some national curriculum like many do in Europe. Each of the 50 states needs breathing room and none of them need Washington DC to be bossing them around like they're slaves of some central know-it-all. We're a Federation, and this was never a monarchy. I wonder if Obama has any ability in computer thinking. He will need it if he is going to referee all the experts he has swarming around him. I see some underlings in the Department of Homeland Security, frustrated after years of laissez-fair, have formed an Internet Security Alliance, and are pushing for major involvement by the Feds. This could be good if Obama understands what they are saying, or bad if he can't distinguish between good advice and glib nonsense. Let's hope Vint Cerf can keep him on the right track. As president, it's not required that he be a geek, no precedent for that in history so far, not even Garfield (though he would have been, given the chance I think), Ben Franklin closest? But no Python back then, Ada still doing her first virtual machine thing (Babbage engine not in her lifetime), weaving the first vaporware (all she could do, same as Leibniz). The only real chess playing computer back then was The Turk, who turned out to be a dwarf (OK, a spoiler, but we can't hide these things forever now can we?). Just about everyone and their younger brother wants a piece of the war on terror, DARPA deluged with proposals, most of them sounding quite similar. Obama will get the tour of the eye candy facilities (as seen on TV), the giant multi-screen anti-terrorism centers that look like one would expect. He'll get briefed on this that and the other about cyber security threats. But he won't have to feel he's all alone in the decision-making. He has friends in high places that've served in several administrations and are not inexperienced in these issues, feeling upbeat about his team. Anyway, not my problem. I'm thousands of miles away in Silicon Forest, working with Coffee Shops Network e.g. places like Back Space and livingroom.com, trying to organize around the concept of meetings for business that keep that Portland flavored edginess. Very niche. Can't say I'm really tracking all that's going on politically, have no time for the political blogs for example, don't know if I've ever checked the ones everyone talks about (used to check Buzz Flash, is that still going strong?), though I do catch up via 'Comedy Central' on DirecTV sometimes, CBS News (morning show too sometimes, now that my daughter is into it). Kirby PS: here's another citation to Doug Engelbart, someone Alan Kay kept going on about when Guido and I packed into that little meeting room with Gunner, to have it out about the different languages and what to do with them. I got very little air time for my proposals, maybe 5 minutes in IDLE, mostly just had a very loud laptop fan, not running Ubuntu, kind of awkward. Loved how I got treated though, very kind people, lots of Guinness, Indian food, great Cape Town hospitality, in Kensington. Fond memories. http://programforthefuture.org/ ___ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig
Re: [Edu-sig] Programming in High School
David MacQuigg wrote: Kirby, This is very well written appeal, but in this mailing list, you may be preaching to the choir. What I would like to see is a discussion of *why* there is not more teaching of programming in high school. I can't seem to get an answer from the few high-school teachers and students I have asked. I suspect it has something to do with requiring all kids to have their own computers, not wanting the rich to have an advantage over the poor, etc. I've thought about teaching high school myself, but the bureaucracy seems overwhelming. David, I am the tech director and programming teacher at an independent school in the poor, benighted Midwest that Kirby mentions ;) (Indiana, to be exact). We teach Scratch programming and Lego robotics in the elementary grades, Python and a little Alice in middle school, and Java, Python and a little C in the high school. We don't require our kids to program at home - they have plenty of chances to work on things at school. Now mind you, most of our kids DO have machines at home, but only a tiny fraction (the hardcore) bother to install Python or Java on them. And here in Indiana, we have enough Linux computers in schools (some 150,000 as of the start of this year) that even poor schools COULD have the access. OTOH, as an independent school, we don't have layers of bureaucracy to deal with, so we can pursue what we value. Teachers (and even administrators) in the public sector don't have that ability. I've done training sessions and day-long workshops for teachers in the state (and in the Chicago suburbs), and here are the reasons I see that more schools don't offer programming: 1) Lack of qualified staff. Sadly a graduate with a teaching certificate (as required by the state) usually doesn't have anything like the background to teach programming, let alone do the sorts of things that Kirby has experimented with. 2) Numbers - at my school, 6-10 kids in AP Programming is considered a good year. In the public schools around town, in a short-sighted drive for efficiency, (but see item 1 above also) administration routinely kills any elective that can't get 3 times that. 3) The whole integration trend in tech in education - 15 years ago it was assumed that as technology became ubiquitous we wouldn't have to teach it, any more than you need to know about electricity to turn on a light. Of course, that analogy was bogus on both ends, but schools have moved in that direction anyway, killing what little programming they did have. Only now (and only very slowly) are they realizing that their students are the poorer for it. These factors (and others of course) combined with the many layers of bureaucracy create a negative feedback loop that is next to impossible for students, teachers or even parents to beat. In fact, I've talked to state education officials that nearly despair of making any headway in some of our schools. -- This time for sure! -Bullwinkle J. Moose - Vern Ceder, Director of Technology Canterbury School, 3210 Smith Road, Ft Wayne, IN 46804 [EMAIL PROTECTED]; 260-436-0746; FAX: 260-436-5137 ___ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig
Re: [Edu-sig] Programming in High School
David: What I would like to see is a discussion of *why* there is not more teaching of programming in high school. Especially given that 'integrating technology into the curriculum' is given such lip service. Most people equate technology with tool use. They seldom equate it with language and a set of ways to articulate ideas. Seems to me that's where education should especially be focused. I think part of the problem in the past has been the misunderstanding about tech jobs getting outsourced. I've heard people say there's no point in becoming a programmer, because all the jobs are going overseas. It's really kind of silly. I've also heard the argument that most kids will never be programmers Right. That's an argument I keep running into. I say, well, most kids won't become historians either, but they still study history. Vern: 3) The whole integration trend in tech in education - 15 years ago it was assumed that as technology became ubiquitous we wouldn't have to teach it, any more than you need to know about electricity to turn on a light. Of course, that analogy was bogus on both ends, but schools have moved in that direction anyway, killing what little programming they did have. Only now (and only very slowly) are they realizing that their students are the poorer for it. This is a great point. It hits the nail right on the head for a lot of frustrating discussions I've had regarding putting programming into the math curriculum. - Michel ___ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig
Re: [Edu-sig] Programming in High School
On Mon, Dec 8, 2008 at 5:10 PM, David MacQuigg [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: At 03:30 PM 12/8/2008 -0800, michel paul wrote: David: What I would like to see is a discussion of *why* there is not more teaching of programming in high school. I think part of the problem in the past has been the misunderstanding about tech jobs getting outsourced. I've heard people say there's no point in becoming a programmer, because all the jobs are going overseas. It's really kind of silly. Stated that way, it does seem circular. I've heard it stated more convincingly by an EE prof to a class of undergrads. If you go into engineering, you will be facing layoffs. Imagine the effect of that expectation on smart students who see their buddies going into law or medicine, and getting more pay and more respect than engineers. It's no wonder there are almost no US students in our graduate classes. I've thought about what I would have said to those students. It would be more like If money is your major motivation, find another profession. If technology is in your blood, stay with it. Learn everything you can. The money will come out OK. I read this as: Engineering is something where mediocrity doesn't pay. Doctors and lawyers are like cobblers, their output is limited by the number of hours they can work, so there is room for good solid workers who aren't particularly innovative. Engineering at its best is not like that at all. It's a field whose main *point* is to make manual labor redundant. Good engineers do their work because it's their passion. The rest... Well they can always try to earn a living cranking out Java code. ;-) We need a shocker like Sputnik. There won't be one. History doesn't repeat itself that literally. Each crisis is fundamentally different, because each time we've learned from the last one. Maybe this economic crisis will do it. It's not as directly related to technical education as was Sputnik, and it may be even tougher to spend money on education now than it was in 1957, but consider the alternative. What will we have to offer our trading partners. Not manufacturing. Not intellectual work. Real estate? I disagree that we have no intellectual work to offer. Most outsourced work I have witnessed first-hand is poorly done. Yes, if your primary skill is J2EE, you should be afraid, very afraid. (Or Perl, if the geo data shown by Google trends is any indication. :-) OTOH if you have a passion for inventing great engineering solutions, the USA is still the place to be. I think it's fine that engineering isn't the job creation engine that people once thought it might be. It's a place where the best and brightest shine. In the dot-com times everyone dropped out of whatever they were doing and suddenly became a web designer. Of course, those were most eagerly hired by dot-bombs, and the first to lose their jobs. I have high hopes we will come to our senses. A year ago, I had almost everything in commodities. Now I am switching back to stocks. I just hope I can ride it out. I don't get the connection. But maybe this is just your way of hinting that you are in it for the money. -- --Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/) ___ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig
Re: [Edu-sig] Programming in High School
Well, I'm a high school teacher, and today we started to learn about programming in my 10th grade Principles of Computer Technology class. I tell them that we do it because it's a good intellectual skill to develop, it builds their problem solving and critical thinking abilities, it's fun, and they might be able to use it someday. We start off with RUR-PLE, which I've been using with great success for several years now. I don't try to turn them into programmers -- I just try to diminish their utter clueless about how programming works, and give them a sense of the possibilities. I would like the handful who might want to pursue it to have a good first exposure to it, of course. I'm always hoping that someone will really take to it, and come back and show me cool things that they've done on their own, but so far (four years now, about 300 kids) it hasn't happened once. I really do worry about the world that these kids are going into, and what kinds of opportunities they're going to have. As Guido implies, the really sharp ones will thrive, but what about the rest of them/us? My best advice to them is to stay out of debt, and not expect to be as wealthy as their parents. I hope that they can find something that they care about to do for a living, and that that will be enough. Demographics, deficits, and environmental concerns are just going to make their lives tougher. Their real problems are not going to be solved because they learned Python instead of Java. - Andy ___ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig
