[squeak-dev] New smalltalk website and Smalltalk activities in Barcelona

> Hi everyone,
>
>> If you, translate to spanish instead Catalan (is the same work, and  
>> all
>> catalonians speaks spanish), all spanish and catalan speakers  
>> (spanish
>> information is small too) could benefit of this.
>
> I was afraid someone would comment on the choice I did when I decided
> to translate the book. Apparently the argument could not be more
> convincing: Why translate to Catalan when a Spanish translation would
> reach much more people?
>
>
> <please, read>
>
> First let me say that I am aware that this is completely off-topic, so
> this will be my last message on this topic in this list. If any of you
> wants to continue the discussion I will be glad to do it, but please
> send your comments to my personal e-mail address.
>
> </please, read>
>
>
> Spain is a state politically split into "autonomies" (sort of
> federal states, but not that much autonomous), and Education is one of
> the aspects on which every autonomy has complete control. That means  
> that
> all the matters on education of kids, from 0 to 18 years old, depend  
> not
> on the central government, but on the autonomic government. In this  
> case,
> the catalan government. Here, in catalonia, the "official language  
> for teaching"
> in public and semi-private schools is catalan (this a bad  
> translation of
> "lengua vehicular", my english is not good enough to find a better  
> one). This
> is the reality of the education where I live, whether we like it or  
> not. I am
> not going into a discussion about whether this is right or wrong.  
> This is the
> way it is, here and now. Period.
>
> Thus, if one's purpose is having all the kids learning to program,  
> and I said
> ALL, one needs to convince a lot of teachers that this is a good  
> idea and that
> the better way to do it is with Squeak. Therefore, one's target are  
> not the
> kids, not the schools, not the teachers. The right target is the  
> government,
> specifically the ministry of education. Here is why I translated the  
> book to
> catalan and why there exists a smalltalk.cat site completely in  
> catalan.
> No catalan => no ministry => no kids programming.
>
> To make a (only one year) long story short, currently we ARE already  
> working with
> the ministry of education:
>
> - All the schools in catalonia have a Linux distribution (Linkat)  
> with Scratch,
> Botsinc (I translated the Botsinc image as well) and Squeak inside.  
> This has been
> distributed by the catalan government.
>
> - We are preparing a Scratch on-line course for teachers that will  
> start next september 1st.
> Thus, any teacher in catalonia (around 60.000) will be able to get  
> in touch with a
> programming tool for kids, so they may be able to teach programming  
> with it.
> The department in the catalan ministry of education that asked us  
> for this course is
> currently considering Botsinc for the next year.
>
> - Currently the ministry of education is getting ready (a matter of  
> weeks, perhaps of
> months) a web site with only Scratch, Botsinc and Squeak material  
> for teachers
> and students. This site will be linked directly from a web site with  
> an average of
> 140.000 daily visits (www.edu365.cat).
>
> - We have a proposal by the ministry of education to create a start-
> up to make
> educational software with Squeak, with some amount (unknown to me as  
> of today)
> of initial funding. This is not a short-term proposal, but it is on  
> the table,
> pending of further discussion.
>
> - There are also some other minor things that perhaps do not deserve  
> any space in this
> already too long message.
>
> And I can assure you that having translated the Botsinc book and  
> software to catalan
> was helpful (among other things) to make clear how serious we are  
> about all this stuff.
>
> Maybe it is a paradox that targeting less people we are in fact  
> reaching much more people.
> If I had translated Botsinc to Spanish, I would end up depending on  
> much more people just
> to make things start to happen. And I am pretty sure that the  
> result, as of now, would not
> be as satisfactory as it is (at least to me). For example, it would  
> be impossible to sell
> the idea in Catalonia, and with respect to the rest of Spain it  
> would have been a autonomy
> by autonomy job, much harder and beyond our possibilities. As usual,  
> less is more.
>
> Finally, we should not forget that Catalan is my mother tongue. I  
> grow up speaking and writing
> Catalan (which was somewhat risky when I was a kid in the seventies.  
> Let us not forget that
> 30 years ago we were under a militar dictatorship) and this is the  
> language I feel
> comfortable writing and speaking. Of course I know spanish, but I  
> write better
> in Catalan. Besides, Catalonia has its own culture. Why should  
> Smalltalk not be part of all
> this? When I go shopping I like to do it in Catalan. When I teach I  
> like to do it in Catalan.
> When I go to the medical doctor I want to talk about cholesterol in  
> Catalan :-)
> So, surely there are people that want to learn programming in  
> Catalan. And this has nothing to
> do with nationalisms and all this crap. I do not want Catalonia  
> independence (which is what
> most of you are thinking now :-)), nor any kind of change of the  
> current situation. I simply
> want to be able to live using my mother tongue. That's all.
>
> What I find really amazing is that in the year 2009 I need to  
> justify a thing that should
> be obvious to everyone.
>
> Okay, let's end this abuse of your patience. Thanks to all of you  
> that get to here. As I said
> before, I will not further discuss this topic in the squeak-dev list.
>
> Bests,
>
> Jordi
>
>