[ Lloyd Hugh Allen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> ] ----------------------------------------------- | As a math teacher, I always fear that I am teaching my students a | particular piece of technology rather than the concept that I am | trying to teach. As a small example, I am confident that my students | can find the point of intersection between two lines with a TI-83, but | less confident that they can find it with a TI-92 or a Casio-whatever; | and I often fear that they don't recognize that they would get the | same answer by solving each equation for y, setting the y's equal to | each other, and then solving for x.
| # cut | It is fine and good to learn a single language, but this is not | computer science. A single language is just a tool. It is necessary to | learn several languages in order to have an idea of what computer | science actually means. | Prerequisite to this is knowledge and use of more than one language. I couldn't agree more. I see people trying to teach a _pattern_ directly, as a shortcut to wisdom-transferring. I humbly believe that to teach a _pattern_, the educator must *carefully* choose the samples and guide the student to discover the _pattern_. Nevertheless, this path is harder for the educator, and thus less traveled day-after-day. best regards, Senra -- ,_ | ) Rodrigo Senra <rsenra |at| acm.org> |(______ ----------------------------------------------- _( (|__|] GPr Sistemas http://www.gpr.com.br _ | (|___|] Blog http://rodsenra.blogspot.com ___ (|__|] IC - Unicamp http://www.ic.unicamp.br/~921234 L___(|_|] ----------------------------------------------- _______________________________________________ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig