I think that's putting the cart before the horse. With adults, strong math and language skills have been much stronger indicators of coding performance than sp

I think that's putting the cart before the horse. With adults, strong math and language skills have been much stronger indicators of coding performance than specific training. So pin-down the basics, and you get a potentially great coder for free! If I recall childhood correctly, they dumped BASIC/LOGO on the class, had us grind through a few cookbook recipes, and none of it was particularly inspiring. To a kid's mind, it's like, "So, I type all of this into the computer, and all I get is a stupid circle?!" Papert is a dead-end. Fast-forward to high school--after algebra, geometry, and calculus--and the value of the computer becomes apparent.