[OT] Teaching Haskell in High School

[Simon Peyton-Jones]

Don't forget Helium (recently announced)
	http://www.cs.uu.nl/~afie/helium/index.html
Also Manuel Chakravarty teaches Haskell to hordes.

Simon

| -----Original Message-----
| From: Hal Daume III [mailto:hdaume@ISI.EDU]
| Sent: 04 February 2003 00:02
| To: Haskell Mailing List
| Subject: [OT] Teaching Haskell in High School
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| Hi all,
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| Before getting in to this, let me preface my question(s) with a note
that
| I have checked through the Haskell in Education web page and have
found
| various links off there of interest (and I've googled, etc.  In
| short: I've done my homework).
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| That said, I've been in rather close correspondence with my
math/computer
| science teacher from high school.  When I first took CS there, they
taught
| Pascal (a year early they had been teaching Scheme).  They switched
over
| to VB (alas) recently and have been teaching that for a few years now.
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| The teacher really wants to get away from VB, but is having a somewhat
| difficult time deciding what to go to.  The two most promising options
are
| Haskell and Java.
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| Aside from hype, etc., the primary advantage to Java is that the
Advanced
| Placement (AP) tests are in Java.  For those of you unfamiliar with
these,
| high school students can take AP tests and then (typically) skip out
of
| first semester college courses.  They're essentially proficiency
exams.
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| The way the computer science curriculum is set up at my old school is
| essentially as either (a) an elective or (b) a replacement for senior
year
| math.  The students in the course are usually about 2/3 juniors (16
year
| olds) taking it as an elective and 1/3 seniors who want to get our of
| senior year math :).  Either way, they've both taken differential
| calculus, algebra, etc.  Note, however, that high school math in the
| states is very rudimentary when it comes to things like "induction"
and
| "proofs" and things of this sort.
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| Due to the fact that CS is essentially an alternative math course, I
think
| it would be interesting to teach Haskell.  It would enable the
instruction
| of things the students wouldn't have come across in their ordinary
math
| studies, etc.
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| However, I'm also well aware that Haskell is very difficult to learn
(and,
| I'd imagine, to teach).  Given that this would in large part be a
first
| language for them and that they won't have a college-level math
| background, do you think it would be too much to attempt to teach
Haskell
| at this level, and stick with Java?
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| I'm really interested in any comments/experience/etc. that people have
| that might assist the teacher (and, to some extent, me) make this
| decision.
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| Thanks in advance!
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|  - Hal
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