I think postponing exposure to OO is perverse only in the sense that I find it symptomatic of a holdover K-12 curriculum that specializes in producing math phobic students.
My plan to address this situation involves drawing from CS to create a math teaching hybrid that uses Python (or competing language) to teach math concepts, starting around 8th grade if not before. We develop fluency in a computer language *in order to* explore such objects as: rational numbers, integers modulo N, vectors, polynomials, polyhedra... I've prototyped my class in Portland Public Schools (at Winterhaven in particular, for several weeks with 8th graders), but currently teach it as a non-credit elective for high schoolers enrolling in Saturday Academy (saturdayacademy.org), a nonprofit sponsored by Silicon Forest execs interested in employing more local talent in future. My hope for these students is by the time they get to college they'd already be well beyond the CS0 course herein described. None of this is to deny an existing population of casualties of the current curriculum, obsolete infrastructure we're also replacing in the Republic of South Africa with the Mark Shuttleworth Pipeline (also features Python pre age 18 -- again, only with *some* students). Kirby
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