[Edu-sig] Hello from a CS Teacher

[Kirby Urner]

At 09:26 PM 02/11/2000 -0500, Randy Latimer wrote:
>Dustin, 
>  From my experience here in Fairfax County, VA, it's very difficult 
>to get the high school CS teachers to support a language other than 
>the one currently in use by the APCS board.

My approach has been to look at Python as one more useful
tool when it comes to teaching mathematics.  Computers, not 
just calculators, deserve a place in our average math class.  
Students need better graphing capability and more exposure 
to symbolic operations than today's calculators provide.

It's a mark of serious over-specialization that we draw 
such an artificial line between "numeracy" and "computer 
literacy".  

Just because I want to program a computer, doesn't mean I 
want to be a computer programmer (speaking generally --
in actual fact I pay some of my bills by writing Xbase). 
For me, CP4E means using Python in a non-CS context.

Kirby

Related posts:
http://www.python.org/pipermail/edu-sig/2000-February/000096.html
http://www.python.org/pipermail/edu-sig/2000-February/000117.html
(note, the 2nd post is bedeviled with lots of =20s which makes 
it hard to read -- I hate it when that happens)