[Edu-sig] Fwd: [Diversity] Okay, here's the deal.

[kirby urner]

Here's something I posted recently to the new diversity list (check
list of lists), thought I'd better run it by here as I don't think
Andre yet knows of his plan to turn edu-sig community page into French
only (with English backup for disabled).

I've got the usual "party line" about reaching out to students through
the user group infrastructure, hoping to drum up exhibits for Vern to
judge and share with us in Atlanta.

There's another post before this, almost as long, that sets the stage,
but I'm reluctant to cross-post too much.

Speaking of cross-posting (and not doing it (but Diversity is a closed
archive)), here's a pointer to the Wittgenstein list I've been
frequenting of late (my specialty at Princeton, his later philosophy
in particular).  I'm doing a segment on the "is" operator in Python.
Comments welcome.

http://www.freelists.org/post/wittrs/mix-of-investigation-and-live-logic-re-understanding

I'm pumping some Python into philosophy discourse in much the same way
I use it to enliven math learning.  I think academic philosophers are
missing the boat in ignoring live executable logic, of the kind
Leibniz hoped we'd have, in favor of pre-computer propositional
calculus stuff ala Bertie Russell & Co.

Prop-calc *anticipated* a lot of the skills we'd be needing, but
staying stuck in that rut, out of a secret desire to collude with
peers on dividing up intellectual turf a certain way
(inter-departmental relations), doesn't well serve our students.

Like Robert Hansen on math-teach talks up how you can go along for
months and years in computer science without ever meeting or talking
with a mathematician, as if that's a "good thing".

In my school, we were taught that hyper-specialization brought us to
the brink of species extinction, so there's this "never again" bias.

Anyway, back to work, hope a few of you have the patience for my
storytelling below... (true stories, with lots of pictures to back 'em
up, so more fun than just science fiction eh?).

Kirby

PS:  also enjoying Math 2.0 (mathfuture) list, Ed Cherlin among us
also (Maria an effective recruiter).


---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: kirby urner <kirby.urner at gmail.com>
Date: Wed, Aug 19, 2009 at 6:12 PM
Subject: Re: [Diversity] Okay, here's the deal.
To: diversity at python.org


On Wed, Aug 19, 2009 at 4:17 PM, Rami Chowdhury<rami.chowdhury at gmail.com> wrote:

> I'm sorry, I'd just like to check that I'm reading you correctly. So you're
> saying the Python community should consider sponsoring / supporting:
>        - FOSS 'covens'

Hi Rami --

Thanks for requesting clarification.  I'm not suggesting I'm that easy
to follow, try to pack a lot in, lose a proportion of readers that way
(malesh).

I don't think PSF needs to lift a finger to sustain the reality of
FOSS covens and FOSS witches in Oregon.  We've already worked that
into our lore, have a long history on that score pre-dating FOSS.

Dunno if you've been to our town, but it's quite common to see bumper
stickers with five pointed pentacles with the word Clergy underneath
-- might be the Intel parking lot.

http://www.thejukejoint.com/bumperstickers.html  (not that different
from New Orleans)

FOSS witches Gabrielle and Selena are more into Postgres as a
specialty (they presented on Code 'n Splode at OS Bridge, our latest
open source conference, developed in response to OSCON sharing the
glory with San Jose, after choosing Portland seven years in a row (I
think it was)).

"World Domination" was our theme, per this banner:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/17157315@N00/3639256600/in/set-72157619963850814/
 (banner)
http://opensourcebridge.org/sessions/34  (the talk I gave, not as
hands-on as the write-up sounds, more a lobbying meeting)

>        - Programming classes / activities for high school math / science
> students
>
> I'd like to say I think the latter is a great idea...
>

More on Digital Math track (DM), versus Analog Math track (AM --
traditional precalc - calc):
http://mathforum.org/kb/message.jspa?messageID=6777885&tstart=0

There's this PSF plan to foster user groups internally to high schools
and then have students forward their work to our Pycon-level "watcher"
(like a talent scout, like a dog show judge) for possible inclusion in
a "poster session" sharing floorspace with company sponsors (Google
might even sponsor posters from Summer of Code or whatever) either
inside or outside the main exhibit hall in Atlanta.

This plan was hatched by the Python in Education committee aka edu-sig
and our watcher is a man named Vern Ceder.  Our edu-sig web page (part
of Python.org) is managed from Canada by a university president.  We
may redo the whole page in French by default, with the English version
for those who still need it -- haven't run this by Guido yet though.

Mirroring the edu-sig page in multiple languages seems a good idea for
*some* web host to consider...

Anyway, the lobbying required to get agile programming in a hybrid
relationship with math content at the high school level is a long
uphill slog.  We have many allies.  The Litvins text used at Phillipps
Exeter, one of the USA's stronger elite academies, is looking pretty
good, definitely a step in the right direction (being upgraded to work
with Python 3.x).

The calculator companies want to postpone the day when we use Python
as a calculator.  Their idea of heaven is to emulate a TI on a Pentium
(or better) such that the Intel CPU becomes a slave to Texas
Instruments software.

That's not so popular in my neck of the woods (Silicon Forest), but
the fact remains that, come September this year, only a lucky few will
be learning any Python in one of our several pilot programs around the
state (in Sherwood, LEP High, Saturday Academy or what not).

In terms of gender sensitivity, given there's a lot of green field
development involved with running a whole new math track through high
school (the most optimistic outcome) or even just a new course, it
pays to have gender studies specialists on board early, which is where
Dr. Tag comes in.

Does that mean we try to hide the fact of FOSS witches?  No, Tag and
Lindsey are friends (per picture below).  Lindsey is also known to
some in her inner circle as "miss torture taxi" (a nick name) as her
work history includes helping with computerized maintenance of those
Gulfstreams owned by General Dynamics (her company's client), some run
out of nearby Evergreen (though her base was Savannah).

http://www.flickr.com/photos/17157315@N00/3832823886/  (small coven)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/17157315@N00/3751824838/ (Dr. Tag @ Linus
Pauling House, a local HQS)
http://wweek.com/editorial/3315/8562/  (local paper re "torture taxis"
-- part of our local lore (esoterica))
http://www.flickr.com/photos/17157315@N00/sets/72157621643139200/
(Lindsey at work (salvage successful))

Note that Lindsey ended up hating her work and came here as a
political and economic refugee, same as many others. She's unusual in
having been management level on her totem pole, having a clear view to
higher levels, but mostly her job was to ride herd and not code.  Her
background in technical topics would be more in the area of Perl and
SVG.

These days she's focusing more on her musicianship, wanting to be a
rock star in the more literal sense.  Anytime I suggest plugging her
back in to some corporate setting, such as Sisters of Providence (my
client for some 15 years), she gets all jittery (PTSD).

The stress some geeks endure has to do with having only Pointy Haired
Bosses and no Dilberts at some level.  That's a problem with USA
culture:  people disconnect from technical subjects to become
politician-managers of the clueless variety, while in some other
systems you get more engineers towards the top (we get that in
pockets, but mostly politicos run her onto the rocks). At least in
Portland she's finding CTOs she respects, of both genders and then
some :).

Anyway, just rambling, like doing a little PR for Portland now and
then.  Our local goddess, Portlandia, has a boyfriend in Gothenberg,
Sweden, where I heard Guido give a talk on the origins of Python.
It's for people in technical domains anxious to get on with their work
without wasting a lot of time on the intricacies of computer science.

It's in that spirit that we're introducing it to pilot schools, giving
an added international spin thanks to the new Unicode base -- still
haven't seen much source code in Arabic though, need to fix that
before going much further with the Baghdad proposal.  That's another
aspect of Diversity in Python:  getting snippets of Python code using
top-level naming that's not always Latin-1.  I've been doing slides
around that, mostly showing Chinese:

http://controlroom.blogspot.com/2007/11/unicode.html
http://mybizmo.blogspot.com/2008/05/chinese-names-in-python.html

Kirby
ндсжег воss