Pascal was on the way out when I was in HS (I'm 32) but it was still kicking in the form of Delphi during the VB wars (then VB4). I have fond memories of it.
I guess if kids learn Java, and still love programming after that, they've got what it takes to be programmers in the real world.
But, I don't think I'd set out to punish kids for wanting to learn programming by making them use something that has so much tedious boilerplate and verbosity. Then again, you can actually make real things with Java; everything from games (Minecraft) to the web (sort of) to apps (most Android apps) to OS programming (Android, itself) is reasonably do-able. So, the empowerment level is high. It just seems like something more immediate would be preferable, at least for the first class (to parallel the use of BASIC in my day; maybe Python would be a good choice, since it can be used for real projects, too).
But, I don't think I'd set out to punish kids for wanting to learn programming by making them use something that has so much tedious boilerplate and verbosity. Then again, you can actually make real things with Java; everything from games (Minecraft) to the web (sort of) to apps (most Android apps) to OS programming (Android, itself) is reasonably do-able. So, the empowerment level is high. It just seems like something more immediate would be preferable, at least for the first class (to parallel the use of BASIC in my day; maybe Python would be a good choice, since it can be used for real projects, too).