On 7/13/07, Sven Forum <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Yup, > > I'm a student at the Erasmus High School in Brussels. > In about 1 year I'm going to graduate as a teacher in mathematics, history > and informatics. > I 'll give math and history to children between 12 and 15 years old and > informatics to those between 14 and 18(+) years old.
Hi Sven -- Greetings from Vilnius, Lithuania, from where I am currently following edu-sig from my hotel room. I hope as you cast about for interesting content for your informatics students, you will keep in mind the plight of your math students, already faced with plenty of content, but without Python to help them master it. In the USA, most schools erect an artificial wall between mathematics and any discipline involving computer programming. To question this wall is considered heresy. One is branded a radical for even calling attention to its existence. Instead of using the Python or any other kid-friendly language to develop ideas about rational and complex numbers, vectors, sets, primes versus composites, important algorithms of mathematics, our children are enslaved to a dark ages regime that permits only calculators, probably by Texas Instruments. Programming is considered irrelevant to mathematics learning. Open source software is scarcely whispered about. The use of Python or other programming languages is either strictly forbidden or strongly discouraged within primary and secondary school mathematics classes. In contrast, many of the state mandated text books devote page after page to the skill of calculator use. Free languages are not mentioned (someday, I hope these will be exhibited in a museum, as testament to the thralldom and intellectual squalor we endured, even into the 21st century). Yes, this is a cruel and repressive system and is retarding the USA's future economic viability and lowering our living standards across the board. An alien and anti-democratic spirit has infected our land. Its agenda is to dumb us down, keep us compliant and manipulable, because our people will not be empowered to use the technologies that surround them. Rather, they are to remain passive consumers, dependent on others, obese inhabitants of a Fast Food Nation (not at all like the "land of the brave, home of the free"), like those pathetic Eloi in 'The Time Machine' by H.G. Wells. See the movie 'Idiocracy' if you want a glimpse of our likely future under this dark ages dictatorship of the so-called "doctors of philosophy" (an ironic joke I realize). May you have better luck in Belgium fighting the entrenched monied interests that repress children and keep our culture relatively computer illiterate. Kirby from Vilnius (just a few blocks from the "KGB museum") _______________________________________________ Edu-sig mailing list [email protected] http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig
