[Edu-sig] Re: Teaching Middle-School Math with Python

[Matthias Felleisen]

;; --- 

  >They mean something.) If you succeed, I am happy. It's an improvement 
  >over what we have in schools. Indeed, if you succeed, we don't need
  >Scheme. 

  Under no circumstances would I want my success to mean "we don't
  need Scheme".  That whole branch of the language family embodies 
  a valuable a meme pool (lots of good ideas) and needs to keep 
  evolving.

Scheme will stay around, don't worry. I meant Scheme in middle schools. 

;; --- 

  As for bringing "mathematics" to programming, I assume you mean
  the uncompromising, logical core of Scheme.  That's partly what 
  makes the learning curve a bit steep, at least initially (I've
  seen some of your excellent teaching materials, accessible to 
  kids, but inevitably some will want to skip over cons, car and 
  cdr before diving in).

I am happy to see that you have read some of our material. But if you had
read it far enough you would see

 - that car and cdr never occur in the book

 - that recursion is explained as the control structure that matches data def

 - that models and views are radically separated so that middle school kids 
   don't have to bother with mind-numbing memorizations about view (i/o)
   stuff. Otherwise we're like biology. 

;; --- 


  This was more in in response Shririam's feedback, after that positive
  review of my curriculum writing at the O'Reilly website:[1]

If you cite from private email, I can't comment. That's between him and you.

-- Matthias