A bit offtopic and at the risk of starting a flamewar I wouldn't really recommend MySQL for this role. Prefer to work with a more standard SQL compliant and more capable DBMS such as SAP DB/MaxDB or perhaps PostgresSQL.I am going to be teaching a High School computer course this fall, and one of the components I want to cover is databases and in particular SQL queries. I am going to use MySQL for my DB both because it's free and it's what I already have familiarity with.