Greetings list, > Even if Python is my choice language for personal projects, I am not certain it is the right language to use in a classroom context.
This sums the view of most teachers in my country. In here for A level at Cambridge for Computer Studies you can choose either Java, or VB or Python The teachers' logic seems to tell them that VB is the simplest of all and more fitted for students. Since we organise the local Python usergroup <https://www.pymug.com>, we have been encouraging the adoption of Python. This happens from experience when teachers think for students, they think student will think like that etc The way schools examinations are set up, learning programming is a bore. Programming requires experimentation and projects. The students must be permitted to explore the wide deep sea that is Python. On one of my projects on Github, i have a toy language, someone from Slovakia (14 years old) built an IDE for it, what was needed was only guidance where he was stuck. The hurdle with Python if any is the setting up and getting the command 'python' to appear in the terminal, which is very easy to get up and running nowadays. When i was in high school, i did not take Computer Studies, but was learning programming on my own, including Python. The irony is that my friends who were learning Python got disgusted with it. Loops and functions turned out to be hard for them. That's because learning for the exam makes you learn the language close to theory. Some commandline stuffs and some numbers stuffs surely is not exiting. Mastery comes with projects, exciting ones. Then whatever the syllabus requires becomes easy. It's a means to an end rather than the end in itself. The teachers' reaction is a reaction to the design of the syllabus. The folks seem to think that let's water it down to a very theoretical approach, strike out practise, strike out the fun out of it and sure the students will find it easier. Since effort is disliked by humans, less effort in learning programming will make students happy. Then, if it was no Python at that time, it might be no Python for life. With that mindset ongoing, those students think they know Python, they studied it, but they missed the whole thing. Forest, trees and leaves. They know only the color of the sign board leading to the place. Kind Regards, Abdur-Rahmaan Janhangeer about <https://compileralchemy.github.io/> | blog <https://www.pythonkitchen.com> github <https://github.com/Abdur-RahmaanJ> Mauritius -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
