Teaching python (programming) to children

[Laura Creighton]

> Sheila King
> Well, in my opinion, the problem is in the way the previous teachers
> have assessed the students, allowing them to get by with such a shallow
> understanding of the topic. Whether or not the graphing calculators is
> used in the course is really not the issue. The issue is: What type of
> test questions was the student required to answer. The best scenario,
> would be having the student take tests, at least half of the time, with
> no calculator permitted, and having them answer meaty questions on the
> topic. In other words: I'm not sure that the problem here is either
> curriculum or method, but assessment.

This is crazy.  The problem is that the students didn't learn.
Assessing the fact that they didn't learn may help educators, parents,
and the students themselves realize that there is a huge problem, but
the question remains:

   Is this a decent way to teach mathematics?

> You admit, earlier, that the number of students you've encountered who
> have this shallow understanding is small, and yet you say that you want
> to dictate what "high school teachers" should do.

Yes.  The students I have met who have been exposed to this method has
also been small, foreign students mostly.  What I want to dictate to
all teachers is that what they do actually promotes learning whatever
subjects they are teaching.  Assesment is good for this, as a way to
evaluate the teachers, and their courses.  Let us say, for argument,
that a teacher who is using method A needs to spend 4 times as much
time individually coaching students and gettting involved with them
personally than a person using method B.  Then only teachers who are
also willing to make the commitment to spend the 4 times as much
should be using method A.  And if that is only, say 10% of the
population of teachers as a whole, then method A, whatever its virtues
when taught well, must be discouraged, unless we have a way to
restrict its use to the 10% who are capable and willing to use it
effectively.  Its wholesale adoption means society as a whole suffers,
and, in the aggregate, statistically speaking, students as a whole are
being more poorly taught.

This really stinks for the teachers in the 10%, and their students, 
but the alternative really stinks for everybody else.  

> In my experience, it doesn't matter what group you are dealing with,
> whether it is teachers, doctors or plumbers, there will always be a
> small part of that group that is "bad". And it really isn't reasonable
> to form the policies for an entire groups based on a few "bad" ones.

Yes.  My suggestion was for the bottom third, not the handful of worsts.
If somebody made me _God_ I think that I would ban the bottom half of
teachers from the profession, on the grounds of our children deserving
better.  I'd do that every 10 years or so, and give teachers a huge
increase in salary so that it would attract the best minds, and
the best people in general in the profession, instead of what we have
now.  Until this happens, we have to design educational platforms so
that the poorest third of our educators can educate with them.  There
is nothing pleasant about this at all.  But I don't see being made
God any day soon, so this is the harsh reality we are stuck with.

> In any case, here is what I really think:
[much snipped.  I don't live in the United States.  I have no idea
if any of the mentioned programs are effective.  If they are, I like
them even if all the teachers hate them.  If they aren't I hate them.
What I hate worse is why you can't get rid of them already.  This makes it
political, which I understand gets in the way of stopping doing bad
things because they are bad.  Testing and assessing is only of use if
we can make some hard conclusions here and stop doing foolish things.]

> I agree with you completely about the current situation, with students
> who have a very concrete understanding of math but are unable to make
> the bridge to abstractness. This has always been one of my battles in
> the classroom. Currently I'm teaching two sections of College Algebra,
> and these students have NO abstract thinking ability nor any ability to
> set up word problems. (OK, that's a sweeping generalization. Maybe I
> have a few who do have these abilities.) But this course is supposed to
> introduce some abstraction, and it is like pulling them kicking and
> screaming. But, I try to take care to ask questions that get at the
> abstract ideas, or to disallow calculators on some of the exams and
> quizzes where they might be used as a crutch (i.e. design questions
> where the calculator is no advantage, or band them from the test if they
> are one). At least, they will not pass the course I am teaching without
> some ability to think abstractly. This is the part that is under my
> control, which I can do something about.

What if its too late?  How old are these students?  If they are in
college then it is way too late for them. You have to start developing
a mathematical intuition in childhood, and really grow one through
adolescence.  You can't graft one on later, no matter how much you
would like to.  It is precisely the same sort of thing as a dietary
deficiency.  You correct that when you find it, but you can't undo the
stunted growth that was supposed to happen and didn't.

Why isn't this considered child abuse?  Why can't we find the bad
policies at every level that cause this and stop them?  Whoever in
the United States thinks that college level is the place to learn
abstraction is either a fool or a very evil person and in any
case I want him or her out of the education business. Now.

angry as anything, though not at you,
Laura Creighton