I'd have to learn Java to even debate this point..(and I'm sure I'm talking to someone with much greater coding experience than I have)..And then I wonder if it would scare even more kids off. These really are newbies.

I'd put myself in the "more feedback early" school or thought. I got my class to write working code the first day without explaning about libraries, classes and all the other fun stuff you'd have to before you could do anything useful. It would depend on what you want to teach. I'd be happy if my students come out of this able to use Perl or some language to solve simple problems. One or 2 might go on an take on C or Java in college. For the rest, they will have gotten part of the way which is a lot more than the rest of their peers.