I have an issue with the idea of "teaching new practitioners X while telling them that X is not to be used seriously", for so many reasons.
1) It is doing a disservice to the students to tell them that you won't use much of what you are made to learn.
2) A nontrivial amount of people will attempt to use it seriously anyway, sometimes with disastrous results.
3) It usually indicates teacher laziness and/or disinteredness in finding alternative ways to teach.
4) Surprisingly often, when you are not supposed to use X, it is actually useless to learn X. (That is NOT the case in this situation -- there are reasons to learn C -- but the students can't know that unless told so.)
5) There are almost always better alternatives. I have never been unable to find a Y which fulfills the same criteria as X, yet in addition is also usable for serious things. It's just that sometimes you have to look a little harder for it.
In other words, I think it is a teacher's categorical responsibility to find a means to teach what they want in a way that is practically applicable by the students right away. And failing to do so should be taken as a strong hint that what they want to teach may not be the thing they should teach.
I wouldn't say this if I didn't firmly believe that you can teach most things in a way that grants the student immediate practical applications. And I don't say this in a political way -- of course everyone should have the liberty to teach whatever useless thing they want in whatever shitty manner they cn come up with. I'm viewing it more as requirements on any teacher who wants to call themselves good, or tell themselves they are doing their students a service and improving mankind.
In my head, it's not too different from teaching calculus by starting with limits. Sure, once you learn to take a derivative, you're almost never going to use limits directly. But it's still important to know.
1) It is doing a disservice to the students to tell them that you won't use much of what you are made to learn.
2) A nontrivial amount of people will attempt to use it seriously anyway, sometimes with disastrous results.
3) It usually indicates teacher laziness and/or disinteredness in finding alternative ways to teach.
4) Surprisingly often, when you are not supposed to use X, it is actually useless to learn X. (That is NOT the case in this situation -- there are reasons to learn C -- but the students can't know that unless told so.)
5) There are almost always better alternatives. I have never been unable to find a Y which fulfills the same criteria as X, yet in addition is also usable for serious things. It's just that sometimes you have to look a little harder for it.
In other words, I think it is a teacher's categorical responsibility to find a means to teach what they want in a way that is practically applicable by the students right away. And failing to do so should be taken as a strong hint that what they want to teach may not be the thing they should teach.
I wouldn't say this if I didn't firmly believe that you can teach most things in a way that grants the student immediate practical applications. And I don't say this in a political way -- of course everyone should have the liberty to teach whatever useless thing they want in whatever shitty manner they cn come up with. I'm viewing it more as requirements on any teacher who wants to call themselves good, or tell themselves they are doing their students a service and improving mankind.