Luis M. González: >After he tried hard many approaches to solving the problem with his limited >knowledge,<
You may even be surprised to see he/her/hir find a solution without your help :-) Or maybe you will see a different solution, this happens often in math and computer science, even basic ones. >show him the right way. This way he will see the light.< Sometimes if the problem is interesting there are more than one "right way". And showing the light is more a purpose for priests than teachers ;-) Note that such things are well known, you can find similar things in tons of (most) books about pedagogy. For example you can try a simple but delicious book, "Brainstorms" by Seymour Papert (who also was one of the inventors of Logo language and is currently learning to talk and walk again). You can even find similar ideas in books more far from pedagogy ones, like "Deschooling Society" by Ivan Illich. Bye, bearophile -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list