[Edu-sig] Python in Secondary Schools

[Andrew Harrington]

On the focus of this list:  certainly Python education (even if it does 
get contentious -- there are strong opinions on all sorts of things).
Certainly I am not looking for big large educational politics centered 
discussions, but I am a bit concerned about the strength of the reaction 
and going too far.

Politics do influence people's mindsets, and hence what they suggest 
specifically about teaching Python.  People make suggests about teaching 
Python that I take with more or less of a grain of salt depending on 
where I judge they are coming from.  I would not like to lose the 
context from which people speak.  There is always a matter of degree.  
Explicitly self-identified influences, with links to a site that would 
give more information to the interested about the influence certainly 
sound fine and useful to me.  This extends to one-line links to most 
anything that might be tangentially of interest to our audience, not 
just politics.  Producing a whole page in our list that could better 
appear on a politics site is completely different and I would prefer not 
to be skimming over it, trying to find the end of the theme.

Andy

Vern Ceder wrote:
> Guido van Rossum wrote:
>   
>> But do polemics have a place on a list dedicated to promoting *Python*
>> in education? The list name is meant to be edu-sig at python.org, not
>> mere edu-sig -- it's not about education(al politics) in general.
>>     
>
> +1
>
>   
>> I am seeing signals that there's been too much politics and not enough
>> Python or education on this list... 
>>     
>
> I have had off-list exchanges with people who were reluctant to post to 
> edu-sig, mainly because they didn't have the time, inclination, or (in 
> some cases) the fluency in English to become embroiled in political debates.
>
> If you ask me (and as I recall, nobody did ;-) ) the great thing about 
> the tutor list is the way they rigorously (and gently) stick to the 
> topic of helping people learn Python. So, yeah...
>
> Vern
>
>   


-- 
  Andrew N. Harrington
  Computer Science Department      Director of Academic Programs
  Loyola University Chicago        http://www.cs.luc.edu/~anh
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