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I had the strangest experience with Logo in junior high. The computer class taught people some basic drawing commands -- going forward, turning left and right,

I had the strangest experience with Logo in junior high. The computer class taught people some basic drawing commands -- going forward, turning left and right, moving the virtual pen up and down, etc. -- but for some reason banned us from using any commands that were "too advanced", by which they meant anything beyond the basic drawing primitives. The thing is, the whole point of Logo is to make thing like looping and conditionals visually intuitive and fun. A the time it was frustrating; in retrospect it's also farcical. Such a waste!

sundarurfriend 5y ago
It's possible that they didn't have anyone who knew the "advanced" commands, and didn't want precocious kids asking questions they couldn't answer.
- pjscott 5y ago
  I wonder how many people’s learning has been held back because a teacher was too prideful to say the words “I don’t know” and then suggest looking it up.
  - ta988 5y ago
    Unfortunately too many and it is still the case. France can't hire teachers, can't keep the ones it has and continues to force young unexperimented ones into the harshest areas. In US it is not better, most are only some kind of test preparers and discipline managers...
macintux 5y ago
I ran into that problem taking a Basic class in high school. I think it boiled down to the teacher didn't know much more than what he was presenting, so he didn't want us to jump ahead.
- mysterydip 5y ago
  Fortunately we had the opposite. We had pascal and C classes until my senior year, when she started offering Visual Basic (which she was learning as she went). At the time QB then VB was my thing (I was working on multiplayer games using winsock controls), so she would ask me questions if someone went beyond her knowledge.
  - pjscott 5y ago
    That’s heartwarming. Although the ideal would be for your teacher to know everything and be able to offer expert guidance, what she actually did was the next best thing and I salute her for it.
ta988 5y ago
I had a teacher that made (forced) us to do tables in wordperfect (windows version) with - and | because thats the way he had always done it. He banned me from talking in his course because I was explaining to others how to do things properly.

sundarurfriend 5y ago

It's possible that they didn't have anyone who knew the "advanced" commands, and didn't want precocious kids asking questions they couldn't answer.

pjscott 5y ago
I wonder how many people’s learning has been held back because a teacher was too prideful to say the words “I don’t know” and then suggest looking it up.
- ta988 5y ago
  Unfortunately too many and it is still the case. France can't hire teachers, can't keep the ones it has and continues to force young unexperimented ones into the harshest areas. In US it is not better, most are only some kind of test preparers and discipline managers...

macintux 5y ago

I ran into that problem taking a Basic class in high school. I think it boiled down to the teacher didn't know much more than what he was presenting, so he didn't want us to jump ahead.

mysterydip 5y ago
Fortunately we had the opposite. We had pascal and C classes until my senior year, when she started offering Visual Basic (which she was learning as she went). At the time QB then VB was my thing (I was working on multiplayer games using winsock controls), so she would ask me questions if someone went beyond her knowledge.
- pjscott 5y ago
  That’s heartwarming. Although the ideal would be for your teacher to know everything and be able to offer expert guidance, what she actually did was the next best thing and I salute her for it.

ta988 5y ago

I had a teacher that made (forced) us to do tables in wordperfect (windows version) with - and | because thats the way he had always done it. He banned me from talking in his course because I was explaining to others how to do things properly.