Only a teacher would ask you to do something silly like this. You could provide an expected answer. Or a unique solution, while the rest of the class will be (yawn) the same...
from operator import lt, gt
def ultimate (l,op,c=1,u=0):
try:
if op(l[c],l[u]):
u = c
c += 1
return ultimate(l,op,c,u)
except IndexError:
return l[u]
def minimum (l):
return ultimate(l,lt)
def maximum (l):
return ultimate(l,gt)
The solution is simple. Use this to set yourself apart from obvious choices.