[Edu-sig] About myself

[Roman Suzi]

Hello!

Well. I was asked to introduce myself and here is my informal
self-introduction in the aspect of this SIG. As I hope
to stay (at least lurk) here for long.

Two years ago I conducted a class in a 10-11 forms (in Russia, these can
be called "higher school" forms).

And for no apparent reason I chose Python to do programming.  (At that
time I had no exposure to Python. I even thought,
 it was a kind of LISP or Schema or similarly AIsh.)
I used Perl to do admin/text processing task, C for other
small things.

I learned Python for the purpose of teaching only, but it occured to be so
magically powerful and attractive, that now (I changed jobs since then) it
my primary language for most tasks.

However, I was always interested in the teaching programming and it always
intrigues me how one become a programmer. Yesterday you can't program, and
today you feel, that you can!

I can't tell that those programming classes were full success, but
nevertheless, I made some observation of what young people expect from the
CS/programming teacher.

And I must tell you that I heard a lot of things like:

"Why not {Delphi, Java, Pascal, C++}" from my pupils. Those usually did
not understand what programming is about. On the contrary, those who
listened made more progress. They were open to new ideas (not just their
maximalist views) and were very supportive of what we did.

*

Really, I don't know why I am here. Probably, I want to listen to more
stories (cases) and find something similar or dissimilar.

But one thing I am very strong about: if we need to teach somebody
programming, the Python is the choice No. 1. (Well, probably it depends on
the age.  For little-ones Logo is probably the choice or some special
adopted environment). But for those who want to learn programming Python
is very-very useful.

(It's hard to switch from it to other languages, though ;-) But in schools
we do not need to prepare programmers. It's all about development in the
minds...

OK. I joined this list as I feel that this direction could be forgotten,
SIG closed, etc.

IMHO, Python's one of primary goals is to be excellent for teaching
programming.

In today's school we are drifting more and more toward "user skills"
(worsprocessing and such mouse-moving behaviour). This is what bothers me
too, as I think those who is capable of programming need to have tools to
learn and get successful results. This raises their IQ ;-) and improves
understanding of life, whereever they will work.

Still I do not see what can be done to the situation except with promoting
Python to the advanced users and teachers. Unfortunately, I am no more in
position where I can influence this process here (I worked in the
teacher's retraining institute's IT center), so probably my presence
here will not be too visible (I do not have much time to do something
real, usually I just generate lots of ideas ;-)

I read some of the archives. Probably I could add something later
to share with others.

(I am also a participant of Seul/EDU (Simple End User Linux,
educational aspect. Python Edu-SIG /\ Seul-EDU != [].

And a moderator of relcom.education newsgroup.

So, if there are some need to communicate some
ideas/offers/questions/queries with the later, you can ask me. I will try
to translate it into Russian and put it into there.

In fact, in the near future I want to prepare an "advertizement" of Python
(and free software) for relcom.education. That is why I also want to
listen here.

Wow. It was quite lenthy explanation!

(I do not have a web-page, at least updated less than 4 years ago ;-)

Sincerely yours, Roman Suzi
-- 
_/ Russia _/ Karelia _/ Petrozavodsk _/ rnd@onego.ru _/
_/ Friday, May 04, 2001 _/ Powered by Linux RedHat 6.2 _/
_/ "A program without bugs is obsolete." _/