Slashdot Mirror
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.
My wife is a teacher, so I'll try and convey the general feeling about teaching. She's not "under qualified" or crap at her field. She was probably one of the brightest students at her University. She simply decided she did not want a job sitting behind a desk all day long.
The problem with teaching is not the money. There are many teachers who don't care about the poor pay. The problem is the non-teaching crap you have to put up with - governments who want you to have all the i's dotted and the t's crossed by making sure you follow the exact strict rules laid down by them, and fill in a dozen forms so they can check you're doing things right. The problem that arises from that is that you end up working 3, 4 or sometimes 5 hours into every evening doing paperwork and marking. So teachers end up over tired and stressed out.
However teaching is still probably one of the more rewarding proffessions out there. My job seems incredibly minor (stopping spam) in comparison to training young minds to think for themselves, and often dealing with their social education too.
So often it's not about the quality of applications, but more about the constant drain on their sensibilities that leads those who are top in their field to eventually leave teaching, not because they don't love it, but because they need to maintain their sanity.
Matt. Want XML + Apache + Stylesheets? Get AxKit.
I teach in the MBA program at DeSales University in Allentown, Pennsylvania. I teach the introductory concentration course for E-Commerce majors in the program--I'm a software developer by trade, and I'm an adjunct lecturer.
"Adjunct" is an adjective derived from the Latin word for "doesn't rate a faculty parking sticker"--and in a lot of institutions the adjuncts are regarded as lower than dirt. Our program is a bit different: practically all of the MBA faculty are adjuncts--we're (mostly) teaching at night what we do during the day. The balding guy teaching FN503--Financial Accounting for Decision Makers? He's the Director of Corporate Financial Services for the largest corporation in the area. The guy teaching the E-Business Models class? He's the CEO of a venture capital group in suburban Philadelphia. The nut job standing on the chair shouting at his EC506 class about the importance of XML and distributed processing as a means to eliminate friction in business? (Uh...that would be me.)
We're not here for the money
The money is essentially a joke. I get a few bucks each month--most of my check I simply have withheld to pay my quarterly estimated tax payments (I'm self-employed). Sure--there are a couple of benefits: the biggest being faculty discounts on everything from software to my subscription to the Wall St. Journal. But the reason I teach for 3-1/2 hours every Wednesday night is because it is a lot of fun to preach technology to a group of business managers over the course of a term. There is a kind of jazz that comes when a sales manager takes ownership of a particular area: for example, a young woman who is just starting graduate school with a background in Finance. She works for a consumer products company, she's advancing rapidly in the corporation, and she fits much of the "tall, good looking, with really good hair" stereotype of the MBA. (Well--she's short. But she's pretty, and she has terrific hair.)
She had to write a paper on DNS that was due three weeks ago, and defend her paper in online discussion with the rest of the class. She's just turned in a paper on VOIP--how it works, who the players are, and the prospects for the technology--night before last. She nailed both subjects--drilled them. Zippo tech background when she walked into my classroom, and now she's scaring the daylights out of her employer's IT staff because she understands how DNS works. Sure--I'll take the bucks, I'll appreciate the U. paying most of my taxes, and I'll cheerfully come to the faculty dinners. But seeing the lightbulb come on over Barb's head is why I teach.
What makes our program work
In two words, "Mohamed Latib." He's the dean of the program, and all of the faculty regard him as a personal friend. We're all deeply enthusiastic about the guy--and we have all bought his vision of what an MBA program ought to be. He's fully aware that the stipend is chump change to each of us--and he constantly demonstrates his appreciation for what we bring to the program. He works, hard, for our personal loyalty. That's a lot different from the typical teacher's situation. (Quick quiz: does your community college president know any professor's preference in beer? Has he ever called a new faculty member to ask if he or she has a preference for a particular brand of Scotch, in order to be sure its on the bar at the cocktail reception?) He describes the MBA faculty as a family, and he means it. He works at cultivating personal and business relationships among us.
The key to Mohamed's success is that he's interested in finding people who have something to say--experts in their fields who want to talk about what they do. Yup--there's a textbook. But for each of us, there is a wealth of practical experience that we bring to the class.
Find the enthusiasts, and hire 'em
Imitate Mohamed's success: don't look for academics who understand technology. They're all trying to get jobs at better-paying (or more prestigious) schools. Look for geeks who can teach. Find the consultant, find the reseller, find the IT guy at a local corporation. Find somebody who can express enthusiasm about the subject--find somebody who does programming for a living, who understands why source code control matters, who understands why documentation is important. Offer the guy an adjunct role, pay him a couple of bucks, and show him that he's appreciated. Give him a soapbox to stand on, and let him rant away--he may well be the best teacher your students ever have.