Well, the first full week of classes has passed, as has the weekend, and I am still alive.
It’s the littlest of things that can make your day go poorly—things like the network not working so that you can’t (a) print a syllabus or (b) have all your students go to Google maps at the same time. Then there’s standing up in front of class and realizing you forgot to prepare a lesson for them (OK, that one hasn’t exactly happened yet).
Everyone who says anything about the first year of teaching says that it’s difficult. I guess they’re right, so I’m trying to survive.
Of course, I’m hoping to do more than survive, since there are also many things to enjoy about teaching as well. Certainly the most enjoyable is that I get to work with people. It surely is a privilege to be able to interact with so many students, other faculty, and staff each day.
Another thing I enjoy about teaching is that I can help students realize that the world is much bigger than they may have thought (e.g. there’s more to the Internet than Facebook, email, and instant messenger).
I’m looking forward to pushing students to learn more about computers. I’m teaching the tenth graders some web things: HTML and eventually programming (PHP) and maybe even databases (MySQL). We’ll see how far we get. I’m also hoping to introduce some of the younger grades to programming, including Alice and logo programming.
I don’t have any pictures of myself teaching yet, but here’s one of me near the top of a mountain that borders Bogotá:
I’ll try to write more about that weekend when I get a chance. In the meantime, you can see some pictures from that trip over here.
Hi,
I found your blog almost by mistake, or luck, if it exists.
I am colombian but I live in Israel, any way, I enjoyed very much reading about your adventures in Bogotá, and to see through your eyes how you find the city where I grew up.
Thanks for sharing, and thanks for trying to open the eyes of my people, this thing you say of showing them how the big the world is, and how many posibilites you have is a precious work man, thank you than you!!.
Just as a tip, tell them that if they learn PHP and MySql they will be able to find better jobs, and they will get better paid, money always encourages colombian people to do things (is sad, but it happens, whan I was teaching Flash to designers it worked out).