Friday, June 08, 2018

Computer Science Teacher as Unicorn

imageThe t-shirt image here showed up on my Facebook feed the other day.  My first thought was “Yes, computer teachers are the coolest.” Of course I know a lot of teachers who teach other subjects who are every bit as exciting as any computer science teacher but there is another thought here.

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.

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4 comments:

  1. Mike Zamansky9:31 AM

    This shirt bothered me.

    There are both great and lousy CS teachers just as there are great and lousy teachers of all subject areas.

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  2. Alfred Thompson11:29 AM

    Yeah, but I'm awesome!

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  3. Mr C12:22 PM

    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)!

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  4. Garth2:34 PM

    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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