More on teaching...
Just got off the phone (my beautiful Treo 600) with my replacement at Peninsula and West High. Once again I'm struck by what an improvement he will likely be. He's personable, is far more realistic about over-committing himself than I've ever been, and amazingly is actually qualified to teach Computer Science.
I only half-joke when I say that my former high school was desperate when they hired me. They really were desperate. They went through the summer of 2002 thinking they had hired a new Computer Science teacher to try to take over for the legendary Mr. Walfred Lester (my high school Computer Science teacher, and his legendary status is well deserved). They found out just before the school year started that the teacher they thought they had wasn't going to be available. They had to bring back Mr. Lester in an emergency status until they could find a replacement... as the school year was starting. To make matters worse, he could only substitute teach for so long before he would be in danger of messing with his retirement benefits. They basically went through Mr. Lester's former students to see if any where in any position to teach. I know I was not their first choice, or even anywhere near it, but I eventually came up. I had JUST graduated from Berkeley (after 5 years) with a degree in Political Science (I was rejected 4 times from the Computer Science program at Berkeley) with no real teaching experience, no credential, and worst of all, I had committed to working at the California Democratic Party as the Deputy Director of Targeting & Data Analysis through the November elections. Despite all of that, they hired me. That, my friends, is desperation!
To be fair, I had some experience working for Professor Mike Clancy in the self-paced Computer Science center at Berkeley. I tutored 5 or 6 classes for it, and had been a reader for 2 other classes while at Berkeley. Given I knew Prof. Clancy, who is heavily involved in the Advanced Placement program, I had some experience with teaching towards the general format of the Advanced Placement exam. In addition, since I took the AB exam in Computer Science in my junior year of high school by self-studying and earned a 5, in my senior year, I was asked to tutor about 10 students who wanted to take the AB exam. That coupled with my experience with the Berkeley decal program teaching a course on the Beatles in my last semester gave me some semi-experience with teaching.
However, my replacement came up as the best candidate after a pretty extensive search, and has a Computer Science degree, and real teaching experience. It will still be rough for him at the start, but I know he'll end up as a very good teacher. I'm extremely glad for that.
I only half-joke when I say that my former high school was desperate when they hired me. They really were desperate. They went through the summer of 2002 thinking they had hired a new Computer Science teacher to try to take over for the legendary Mr. Walfred Lester (my high school Computer Science teacher, and his legendary status is well deserved). They found out just before the school year started that the teacher they thought they had wasn't going to be available. They had to bring back Mr. Lester in an emergency status until they could find a replacement... as the school year was starting. To make matters worse, he could only substitute teach for so long before he would be in danger of messing with his retirement benefits. They basically went through Mr. Lester's former students to see if any where in any position to teach. I know I was not their first choice, or even anywhere near it, but I eventually came up. I had JUST graduated from Berkeley (after 5 years) with a degree in Political Science (I was rejected 4 times from the Computer Science program at Berkeley) with no real teaching experience, no credential, and worst of all, I had committed to working at the California Democratic Party as the Deputy Director of Targeting & Data Analysis through the November elections. Despite all of that, they hired me. That, my friends, is desperation!
To be fair, I had some experience working for Professor Mike Clancy in the self-paced Computer Science center at Berkeley. I tutored 5 or 6 classes for it, and had been a reader for 2 other classes while at Berkeley. Given I knew Prof. Clancy, who is heavily involved in the Advanced Placement program, I had some experience with teaching towards the general format of the Advanced Placement exam. In addition, since I took the AB exam in Computer Science in my junior year of high school by self-studying and earned a 5, in my senior year, I was asked to tutor about 10 students who wanted to take the AB exam. That coupled with my experience with the Berkeley decal program teaching a course on the Beatles in my last semester gave me some semi-experience with teaching.
However, my replacement came up as the best candidate after a pretty extensive search, and has a Computer Science degree, and real teaching experience. It will still be rough for him at the start, but I know he'll end up as a very good teacher. I'm extremely glad for that.
posted by Jim Casaburi at
8:26 PM
2 Comments:
Casaburi, you're more legendary to me than Lester will ever be. Of course, it's in a far different manner....
Your class has almost convinced me (and several others) to attempt to start a Casaburi club at Pen, dedicated to teaching future generations of students important things such as general geekery, doing non-Computer Science homework in Computer Science classes, and the art of falling asleep in front of oblivious teachers, so that your brief teaching stint at Pen will be highlighted for generations to come.
Of course, laziness plays a large role in the reason why any thought that goes towards creating the aforementioned club is immediately discarded...
--Daniel
By
Anonymous, at 7:47 PM
Don't confuse legendary with infamous. I may qualify as the latter, but definetly not as the former.
As for teaching people how to do non-Computer Science homework in Computer Science. I doubt there's a need to do so. It was quite possible, and easy to do so before I taught that. (indeed, I usually counted on my 0 period Computer Science class to get much of the homework I hadn't finished for my other classes when I took it) And from my experience as a student, NO ONE needs any help in learning how to sleep in class. That happens naturally to pretty much anyone (except for possibly me... I still have almost never done that).
I grant you I did bring up geeky topics more than most teachers I know, and that was very intentional. Indeed, if I had to do it again, I'd try to make it more a regular part of the class.
That said, I'm really pleased you did learn the most cardinal rule of the class: laziness is a virtue.
By
Jim Casaburi, at 8:55 PM
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