Unicorns are both magical and rare. I would argue that all good teachers have a bit of magic to them. Computer science teachers are more rare though. And frankly, computer science feels a lot like magic to a lot of people.
Today is the last day with students at my school and what I’m thinking about is “did I make magic this year?” and “how can I make more magic next year?” Maybe being the unicorn is the goal.
4 comments:
This shirt bothered me.
There are both great and lousy CS teachers just as there are great and lousy teachers of all subject areas.
Yeah, but I'm awesome!
I love you assessment criteria: “did I make magic this year?” and “how can I make more magic next year?”
I saw a shirt this week in my feed: "World's Most Average Programmer" As I thought about it, my opinion shifted...
At first, I felt bad for someone wanting to label themselves as just 'average.'
Then, I thought maybe I should wear that while teaching to dissuade students from thinking I have special coding powers.
Lastly, even an 'average programmer' has awesome ability. In this case, average is a good goal (at first)!
Every year I look at my year of teaching CS and rate my year. This year was a B-. In my best year I was only a B. How would I ever get to be an A teacher? A lot more CS background (which because of that pesky teaching job I cannot get) and a year or two spent teaching with an experienced A class CS teaching team (there are no experienced CS teaching teams in Montana. Heck, there are hardly any experienced CS teachers in Montana.). I look at many of the CS teachers in Montana and I would rate them as a C or D so I am sort of happy with my self-rated B. I do not deserve a unicorn. I would be more a My Little Pony.
Every year I do make improvements to myself and my courses but every year I seem to get smarter and more knowledgeable students that make that A rating harder to reach. If I ever think I have reached that A rating I know it will be time to retire because I will have become delusional.
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