

If there’s no specific use-case (this is a general introduction, not Intro to Operating System Design) and this isn’t academic Computer Science teaching, then certainly a scripting language.
Easy to learn, easy to use, and much more applicable for simple automation that benefits the people learning.
C is dangerous if someone doesn’t take care. Java is verbose and personally I didn’t enjoy it one bit. You said this is a non-technical crowd and you expect them to follow at home.


Speak for yourself. Those who have been on the streets have been seeing police suppression for decades, over a century even. Protest laws have been encroaching all that time.