[Edu-sig] Switching gears...

[Kirby Urner]

I think I'll give up pursuing the "math through programming"
thread with the math teachers.  I'll stay in contact with
the few with an interest who got in touch, but most of the 
time it's like talking to a brick wall.

Fortunately, the computer science track covers a lot of the
same material ('Concrete Mathematics', 'Art of Computer 
Programming'), so in some respects we can make up for 
deficiencies in the math curriculum by bolstering the 
computer programming curriculum.

I see a large homeschooler market developing here, as many
kids have computers at home but no competent teachers in 
school (Yorktown kids etc. are lucky).  I hope those 
computer science/programming teachers who share this stuff
with kids will continue putting a lot of it on the web in
an accessible form, as for every kid in the classroom, 
there will be 100 at home with fewer options to learn in
a group setting with a live teacher.

I feel sorry for kids who just get the regular K-12 
math curriculum these days.  It's not relevant to their 
needs.  But it's what the teachers are programmed to 
teach, and there's no sense arguing with essentially 
mindless automatons.  I can think of better and more 
effective ways to rescue kids from a dead end curriculum
and will be heading down those avenues instead.

Kirby

More in a similar vein:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/synergeo/message/1876