Fall has come and while students are back in school I am not. I’ve been reflecting a bit about that. I don’t miss getting up at 6 AM and driving for close to an hour to get to school. I don’t miss running my life by a bell schedule. I don’t miss grading, report cards, and other administrivia. I don’t miss classroom management issues.
On the other hand, I do miss interacting with students. I especially miss the interactions that take place outside of class. I miss the look, and sound, of students when they get a concept or when their program works – finally. I miss debugging student problems with programs or their project. Students are very good at finding ways to mess up a Visual Studio project. That’s the one big downside to using a professional tool. But I had fun putting things back together.
There are all sort of debugging issues that come up in the code. There is syntax issues (semi colon hide and seek anyone?) and logic problems. Both are fun little puzzles to solve. And I am sure there are still many that students have not discovered.
But the big miss is the students. I still think I retired at the right time for me.
I hope your school year is going well. I am following all sort of teacher/school things on social media and I know its not easy. Stay safe. And if you have a student program you can’t debug let me know.
The sad thing is, that's what all of us are missing right now: the students. I'm currently teaching via Zoom, from an empty classroom on our campus, and it's just not the same.
ReplyDeleteClassroom announcement on the bulletin boards around the room? Unseen. 3D printers? Sitting unused in boxes off to the side. Micro:bits, Raspberry Pis, Arduinos, a couple of drones, all staying in storage for the moment.
We're making a good go of things online, but it's just not the same...
I'm a high school student in computer science right now. My teachers are an inspiration to me and I miss them very much :)
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