Certainly imperative-style also has its own advantages, and I'm not saying FP is better or anything.
You might be right about the tinkering view, and to be honest, I know that sometimes procedural thinking is a must-have ability that kids should posses.
But then again, programming is not just coding, and kids getting used to imperative-style would probably miss the whole point, which is finding challenge.
Anyway, you know how hard it is for a person who is used to imperative to get it out of his system and program functionally. I have found the other way around much easier. Just a thought.
Why not both? Progress is usually the important part. Offering both is expensive; but going all in on a single approach is dangerous in the failure case.
Teaching both would work for older kids, but a lot of Papert's work suggests that most kids under 12 haven't yet developed enough capability for abstract thought to use explicitly mathematical concepts to model the world, so teaching FP style at that point is just going to lead to frustration.
If you're going to teach kids at younger ages, you need to introduce it in a way that they can relate to physically, which is why Logo makes the turtle central; it has a heading and position just like a child's body, and it moves in a similar way to the way you think about moving yourself.
Anyway, you should read Mindstorms if you're interested in this topic; it does a great job explaining why the Logo approach is specifically grounded in a thorough understanding of childhood cognitive development.
You might be right about the tinkering view, and to be honest, I know that sometimes procedural thinking is a must-have ability that kids should posses.
But then again, programming is not just coding, and kids getting used to imperative-style would probably miss the whole point, which is finding challenge.
Anyway, you know how hard it is for a person who is used to imperative to get it out of his system and program functionally. I have found the other way around much easier. Just a thought.