On Fri, Aug 23, 2013 at 4:35 PM, James Simmons <nices...@gmail.com> wrote: > > Walter, > > Several points in your digest got my attention. First, I like the Disreali > quote. I have just finished writing a novel and I learned more from doing > that than from every literature class I ever took. The funny thing is I had > been assigned to write short stories in high school, but my teachers never > told you how to go about it. I only learned the process from reading books > by Jack Woodford (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Woodford). I wish I had > those books in high school. They explain everything. A lot of well known > authors learned how to make stories and novels from those books, including > Ray Bradbury. > > Second, I am also an admirer of Flavio Danesse. He has a website in Spanish > that is a great resource for a new Python programmer. I agree that IDEs are > probably something to avoid when learning to program, at least the more > complex ones. I learned C from Turbo C, which was not much more than an > editor with a compiler that let you click on a compile error and be taken to > the line in the editor that had the problem. Something like that is > worthwhile. Eric is pretty much just that for Python, plus syntax > highlighting. If you mess up the indenting it will tell you. > > I have a niece at Thomas Jefferson High School that I tutored in Java > programming. Her books were written by her teachers and licensed using > Creative Commons, but apparently they weren't published anywhere. They > didn't use IDEs either. It was a tough class for some very bright kids. > > Finally, the whole Spirituality For Kids thing. I suppose people have > different ideas on what Spirituality is. The website promotes astrology, > which I find kind of dubious. I got all my ideas about Spirituality from my > wasted youth in the Hare Krishna movement, so I was hoping for something > more like my own education. In the first lesson you'd learn how "You're not > that body!" and other lessons would include The Path Of Knowledge, The Path > Of Action, The Path Of Devotion, and so on. After the final lesson the > child would be given a bag full of Bhagavad Gitas and sent to the nearest > airport. > > James Simmons
Maybe I haven't looked carefully enough, but I didn't see anything about astrology. Thought it was pretty much a humanist approach. -walter -- Walter Bender Sugar Labs http://www.sugarlabs.org _______________________________________________ IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep