[Edu-sig] CP4E

[Arthur]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jordan Johnson [mailto:jorjohns at cs.indiana.edu]
> Sent: Sunday, April 10, 2005 2:12 PM
> To: Arthur
> Cc: 'Kirby Urner'; edu-sig at python.org
> Subject: Re: [Edu-sig] CP4E
> 
> 
> On Sunday, April 10, 2005, at 10:32  AM, Arthur wrote:
> >> Now that computers have entered the picture, I see them as
> >> ubiquitous, and
> >> important to start practicing on early.
> >
> > That's the standard line of thinking. I know it well. And reject it,
> > hook
> > line and sinker.
> 
> When I attended the TeachScheme! workshop
> (http://www.teach-scheme.org/) last summer, our presenter started off
> by saying:  "How many of you have taken a class in telescope science?
> Anybody?  How about microscope science?  Have you done that?"
> 
> Point being, the computer is a tool, and it is absurd to spend time
> teaching only how to use a tool.  The utility of the computer is in
> making connections to tough concepts such as abstraction, patterns, and
> modeling.  And, even further, intelligence.

The further point being, in my mind, that the TeachScheme folks are much
more responsible (because I think they are quite serious in and about what
they are doing) about representations in respect to issues of age
appropriateness.  And that to some extent is and has been near the root of
my admittedly knee-jerk reaction when I approach the idea of 5th graders
parsing text files in Python.

Logo has been mentioned.

Lisp is to Logo as Python is to nothing that exists, or IMO, needs to exist.
Since Logo exists.

And Python is a programming language - most appropriate where it is most
appropriate - not a Movement.

Art