Anna Ravenscroft wrote: >> Still, I could essentially see Guido's point, because some conventional >> school staff who otherwise like Python may face issues posting to a list >> talking about the future of education (which may appear to threaten >> their job), so perhaps ultimately a solution would be to have one list >> for "python in mainstream education" and another list for "python for >> alternative or future education". > > Or how about one list on "educational politics" and one on python in > education. Oh wait - there ARE already lists on educational > politics... how about those who want to discuss that, go to those > lists and discuss it there?! And use this list to specifically discuss > python in education?
I think your analogy (and by extension Guido's strawman proposal) is flawed, because a key aspect of *design* is to see how values and priorities (which is the core of "politics") lead to new and interesting structures for software and content and hardware. In a Python CP4E context I see this as including any or all of: * changes to Python itself (e.g. "edit and continue" support in the core and in IDLE), or * new libraries for Python (e.g. PataPata), or * new application based on Python (e.g. constructivist educational simulations, including perhaps, though he might have disagreed, the late Arthur Siegel's PyGeo :-), or http://pygeo.sourceforge.net/index.html * new curricula or other smaller educational materials (e.g. the Shuttleworth Foundation's steps in that direction), or * even new hardware which is Python-powered (e.g. OLPC, or even Lego Mindstorms NXT robotics, which I just got two of and was yesterday looking up references to using Python to program). To talk about creating such software or hardware or content without a sense of priorities and values would be analogous to going to an architect, asking them to design you a custom house and, and then saying, "well, you're an architect, just design us something, we are busy people and have no time to talk about values or priorities". Although I guess even there a clever architect would learn one thing about such people's values and priorities. :-) For a personal example, to show these issues are not just talk, consider the literally person-months I spent building the PataPata experiment http://patapata.sourceforge.net/ to bring some Squeak-like constructivist ideas more directly into a Python-powered IDE, and which I discussed on this list. Maybe not a huge success, but a big investment of my limited time in the free Python realm and I learned a few things from it (including the importance of naming objects if you wished to share them, a departure from the "Self" prototype programming ideal using unnamed pointers to parent objects). http://patapata.sourceforge.net/critique.html Ultimately, PataPata was of very marginal interest here. Other people can talk about how Squeak has ideas that might work in Python, but when things got going, the talk was just talk. Ideally, from my point of view, people here would have discussed how these priorities and values of learned-centered technologies such as PataPata was a step towards could be translated into even more Python-related software, stuff beyond PataPata and even better. People could go beyond what I reference, and go beyond my own self critique, and as experienced educators suggest even better ideas for new technology related to Python (e.g. "the students are always saying if only we had X Y or Z for Python they'd be using it so much more for the things they want to do" -- like the reasons a homeschooled kid chose "DarkBasic" instead of Python, as mentioned on the Math Forum Kirby posts to). http://mathforum.org/kb/message.jspa?messageID=5812048&tstart=0 But that doesn't happen here much, in large part I'd speculate since most educators here are teachers, and the authoritarian context most teachers work in is unfortunately very limiting both as to free time and as to possible horizons, at least in the USA. Again, for example, consider my relative who could be fired if she installed Python on her classroom computer, and who would not have enough free time to go through the bureaucratic hoops to get Python installed district wide, let alone then have time to learn how to use it). That all to me is tremendously disappointing, especially as: CP4E != CP4MainstreamSchools in my thinking (even if mainstream schools are part of "Everyone"). It's no big surprise the US military (of all US institutions including the Department of Education) initially funded CP4E, because, in the USA, historically the military has had the most difficulties dealing with lack of education among recruits, see for example: http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/3b.htm """Back in 1952 the Army quietly began hiring hundreds of psychologists to find out how 600,000 high school graduates had successfully faked illiteracy. Regna Wood sums up the episode this way: "After the psychologists told the officers that the graduates weren’t faking, Defense Department administrators knew that something terrible had happened in grade school reading instruction. And they knew it had started in the thirties. Why they remained silent, no one knows. The switch back to reading instruction that worked for everyone should have been made then. But it wasn’t."""" Doesn't that sound a bit like future echoes of "Why Johnny Can't Code"? http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Why+Johnny+Can%27t+Code http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2006/09/14/basic/index_np.html http://news.com.com/Why+Johnny+cant+code/2010-1071_3-5596882.html http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/09/14/0320238 It is another example of how, ironically, the US military is perhaps the only well supported large institution in the USA who, as with illiteracy, needs to wrestle with the consequences of US educational problems on a large scale. Gatto suggests, unlike the military, most of the other US institutions actually grow in power the more dysfunctional citizens are, so educational failure isn't a problem for them; illiterate graduates are paradoxically a great thing for, say, a department of education's budget -- justifying, in an unexamined way, more money to do more of the same. People on this list (including Guido) sound disappointed in me for talking educational politics, but as I reflect on it, I am disappointed with people on this list for not helping more directly translate the values and priorities I reference into even more Python-related options for the future of most education. That future will IMHO emphasize learner-centered and learner-customized on-demand activities which empower the user to do amazing things either alone or as part of amazing ad hoc groups like a typical open source or free software projects, including Python. And that disappointment is even keener because I have little doubt the educators on the edusig list are generally some of the most progressive ones around (otherwise, people her would be on a Java list or teaching about using Visual Basic to script Office). I can acknowledge that to the extent edusig is about being a teachers' lounge where teachers compare notes about teaching Python to meet state-defined objectives to pass standardized tests, such discussions seem off-topic. But as I said before, if that is the concern, Java is really the answer (in the USA, based on AP credit as someone else mentioned; granted other countries will differ). Once we wander off that path of standardization, then lots of issues relating to values and priorities show up -- especially if, like me, you are interested in making new things related to Python and education. --Paul Fernhout _______________________________________________ Edu-sig mailing list [email protected] http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig
