This middle ground is also why I think Go would be/is a great learning language at colleges or in general. You've got something which has a lot in similar with

This middle ground is also why I think Go would be/is a great learning language at colleges or in general. You've got something which has a lot in similar with dynamic languages, doesn't require much to learn Hello World (in comparison to Java), but has higher-level features like GC, first-class functions, etc. You also learn something C-ish in pointers which you might be aware of but not truly know in dynamic langs. Concurrency is only a benefit. It is a really simple language that anyone can learn quickly and then take that knowledge higher level with a Python or even Clojure or Haskell or lower level with a C. Is anyone aware of Go being used as a teaching tool in an academic environment?