Python in High School

[marion at everautumn.com]

On Apr 1, 1:27 pm, sprad <jsp... at gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm a high school computer teacher, and I'm starting a series of
> programming courses next year (disguised as "game development" classes
> to capture more interest). The first year will be a gentle
> introduction to programming, leading to two more years of advanced
> topics.
>
> I was initially thinking about doing the first year in Flash/
> ActionScript, and the later years in Java. My reasoning is that Flash
> has the advantage of giving a quick payoff to keep the students
> interested while I sneak in some OOP concepts through ActionScript.
> Once they've gotten a decent grounding there, they move on to Java for
> some more heavy-duty programming.
>
> I've never used Python, but I keep hearing enough good stuff about it
> to make me curious.
>
> So -- would Python be a good fit for these classes? Could it equal
> Java as the later heavy-duty language? Does it have enough quickly-
> accessible sparklies to unseat Flash?
>
> I want to believe. Evangelize away.

I am a strong support of teaching programming in middle and high
school. Kids have the potential of being more than just passive
consumers of other programmers work. That is best illustrated by the
growth of game mod'rs writing their own levels for computer games.

I think I agree with all of the positive, supporting posts about
Python. I would just like to add that Python (and PyGame) are open
source and so your students can download it at home and have fun
exploring it on their own time (at their own pace). I think that is a
real positive.