[Edu-sig] Procedural front end for Zelle's graphics.py

[kirby urner]

I think postponing exposure to OO is perverse only in the sense
that I find it symptomatic of a holdover K-12 curriculum that
specializes in producing math phobic students.

My plan to address this situation involves drawing from CS to
create a math teaching hybrid that uses Python (or competing
language) to teach math concepts, starting around 8th grade if not
before.  We develop fluency in a computer language *in order to*
explore such objects as:  rational numbers, integers modulo N,
vectors, polynomials, polyhedra...

I've prototyped my class in Portland Public Schools (at Winterhaven
in particular, for several weeks with 8th graders), but currently teach
it as a non-credit elective for high schoolers enrolling in Saturday
Academy (saturdayacademy.org), a nonprofit sponsored by
Silicon Forest execs interested in employing more local talent in
future.

My hope for these students is by the time they get to college
they'd already be well beyond the CS0 course herein described.

None of this is to deny an existing population of casualties of
the current curriculum, obsolete infrastructure we're also replacing
in the Republic of South Africa with the Mark Shuttleworth Pipeline
(also features Python pre age 18 -- again, only with *some* students).

Kirby
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