Any Teachers on Slashdot?

Traxton1 asks: "I am a student in a community college, and I spent all day in a hiring committee for a new Computer Science faculty member. I was wondering if there are many teachers who hang around on Slashdot. One of the people we interviewed had a power point presentation that didn't display correctly, and he said it was because he was using Star Office. I was shocked that someone who wasn't in the tech sector used anything beside Windows. My C++ teacher actually said that if we used anything beside Visual C++ he wouldn't even try to help us compile.I was just curious to know if people who really are very tech-savvy desire to be teachers at all. Oh, one more thing: they tried hiring for this position 2 years ago and got 3 applicants, and none of them qualified for the job." They say teaching is an "honorable profession" and I believe every word if it. If only they got paid more, maybe there would be more quality applicants across all subjects.

Comments

I plan on becoming one.

[UnifiedTechs]

I am not currently a teacher, but I do plan on being one after my Masters. I got the "teaching bug" after being a Marine Corps marksmanship instructor. Now that I am getting my masters in Telecommunications I am looking at teaching as a field. Not all teachers do it because they can't get a real job, some actually like it. At my college a lot of the professors are there because they wanted to take a break from the tech sector, and they plan on going back in a few years. Some of them actually like it so much they never go back.

I really think teaching is like any other career out there, you are going to find some people who actually like it even though they could do "better".

South African perspective

[codeButcher]

I've in the past been teaching Computer Studies part time and also providing extra tuition to what we call high school over here (about 8th to 12th grade / year of school - similar to British system). Of course this was done for the love of it since any salary couldn't come close to what I earn at my day time job. I'm currently involved in writing textbook material for the same audience, to be used in a distance learning/home schooling environment. I don't hold any teaching qualifications, only a CS degree. Which is apparently quite fine with the people I answer/ed to.

With this background in mind, the following points need mentioning:

1. Having been through the academic mill and having worked in industry, I'm quite amazed at the utter crap some of the local teachers/textbooks dish up to the kids. Also, these same people need to make policy descisions on what needs to be examined at year-end, what programming environments need to be used, etc. The result is very much hype-oriented which ties the kids very much into a certain tool/methodolody. I'd rather have students who know the underlying concepts and are exposed to many different tools so that they can choose and experiment for themselves, and choose the tool that suits the job at hand the best.

2. With the local currency nosediving against the Dollar and Euro (lost 40% in 2001) software is becoming prohibitively expensive. Free stuff like StarOffice, Virtual Pascal, Cygwin or Linux (including all the nice programming languages) is a REAL lifesaver.

I'm a teacher

[djmitche]

I teach middle school math at a school in South Carolina. My previous experience was as a math and computer science student, system administrator, and programmer. I also have quite a background in web design.

Prior to becoming a teacher, I spent a lot of time around schools and youth-assistance nonprofits. I was appalled by the state of technology, particularly in the schools.

There are many problems with the technology itself -- the kinds of computers, network connections, management and administration, etc.

There are also enormous problems in the *use* of technology -- teacher training, student training, availability, emphasis, etc. In the end, I find that many educational uses of technology are extremely shallow -- instructors either let the computer do the teaching, or use the computers as glorified pen-and-pencil.

Teachers are required to take technology courses for recertification credit in most states, but most of those courses are abysmal, as they do nothing to build fundamental understandings or relate new concepts to possibilities for real student learning.

I strongly encourage every /.'er to spend time at a school. See what things are like. Let's see the /. effect applied on the physical plane!

If you have a shred of social conscience and know a NIC from a NACK, the educational world can use your help. Bring your deep understanding, your vision, and your willingness to help to your nearest school. You might spec and build a new lab, or help a teacher to understand how the web *really* works. You may just save the school from making a big investment in something they do not understand and which will not be used. Whatever happens, you'll find it very rewarding.

Dustin