Accidents & Inspiration

July 27th, 2009

…will lead you to your destination. — Mary Chapin Carpenter, The Long Way Home

I went to school on an academic scholarship, and I wish I could say that I got to do that on account of my incredible foresight,  determination, and hard work.  But that’s not at all what happened.  Here’s how it went down:

When I was fairly young (7), I realized it felt really good to do well on my homework.  When you’re seven, you don’t really think of things in terms of hard and not-hard.  You think of things in terms of in-trouble versus not-in-trouble.  I didn’t think about being smarter than everyone else, I just saw an easy way to not agitate the adults at home or at school, and that seemed just fine to me.

Compliments about being smart were nice, but really, I was just happy to be left alone.  Being nerdy with schoolwork almost directly meant I couldn’t really be chummy with other people my age, so I figured I better get good at sports too.  I wasn’t funny enough, or charming enough, or pretty enough to be recognized for those qualities, so sports it would be.  Besides that, my dad seemed to appreciate all the “hard work” I was putting in and that made me feel pretty good too.

Doing well in work and play became a habit.  Only during lectures by college spokespeople in high school did I ever think (or say) that I was working toward a long-term goal.  My goal was to do good that day and not get in trouble the next.  Those were my aspirations.

Once “getting A’s” became habitual, and being athletic was pretty well cemented, then the rest was just for show.  Nothing required honest-to-god hard work, it just looked, from the outside, as though it did.  What really mattered, was time.  Everything required time.  So I did as many things as would fit in a day since wearing out oneself isn’t a factor when you’re 16 years old.

At one point, I was taking 8 classes in a school that was structured for a maximum of 7, playing two sports concurrently and performing with two bands.  I also worked and volunteered outside of school.  Again, I never thought about things in terms of hard work — only time.  Operating at full-tilt was my mode by default at this point, not effort.  Habit, really. Certainly not out of drive.

I distinctly remember a teacher telling me I was his single source of inspiration in a very difficult (his first) year of teaching.  I remember feeling flattered, but wondering what I was doing that was so damn hard.  I knew I was being given too much credit.  Getting in the Who’s Who of American High School Students book didn’t feel like the achievement it was supposed to be.

So I got good grades because they were easier than bad grades on the stay-out-of-my-hair-I’ll-stay-out-of-yours scale, and I was good at sports because they were fun and I liked the praise.

During our junior year, they ushered the entire class into the cafeteria to take the PSATs (Preliminary SATs).  I scored very well on the test because it didn’t make sense to blow off a test that got me out  of class all day.  I did not seek this test out.  My high school just told us to take it.  I didn’t have a choice.  (Apparently, most high schools advertise the dates and students sign up to sit the test.)

Months later, my school received a letter that said I should demonstrate my extra-curricular awesomeness, send in my transcripts and submit letters of recommendation to be considered for the National Merit Finalist Award.  The councilor of the school, at the time, Mr. Cantu, did all this without my knowledge.  Weeks after that, I was on the golden list.  Thank you, Mr. Cantu.

Letters from colleges came by the dozens.  My dad threatened to charge me rent on the post office box.  Scholarship offers for sports, academia, and merit rolled in.  Some large, some small.  I chose the largest and moved to Ohio.

I lived there for 6 years and stumbled away with an engineering degree in 2004. (College stories are for another post, stay with me here.)

Engineering, specifically Computer Science & Engineering, was the third most difficult degree to complete at my school at that time. Law was first, followed by Pharmacy, and the school I went to was notorious for three of the most rigorous programs in those areas.  So why did I choose it?  Well first, when I chose it, I didn’t know those facts.  Second, my brother laughed at me when I told him because he knew I didn’t know the first thing about computers and that made me just mad enough to do it out of spite.  And third, I didn’t have anything else in mind, so this seemed good enough.

So what am I saying here?  That I’m not smart? Or hard-working? Or ambitious?  No.  I think I’m all those things.  Or, at least, now I am.  But the lesson here is how I came to be those things.

Now I recognize my qualities and I can better myself because of them.  But I wasn’t born reaching for the stars.  It wasn’t until I realized I was on my way there anyway that I decided they were a destination.

If you’re still reading this, you should know that this is somewhat embarrassing to write.  I’ve pretty much just admitted to God and everyone that my motives were never pure, my drive was misguided, and my intentions were shortsighted.  I am not, nor was I ever, the level-headed kid with big goals and small pockets.  I was not out to best by financial situation by getting a giant scholarship and then blowing the lid off expectations by majoring in something hard.  Given the circumstances, I was just doing what seemed easiest at that time, and that’s embarrassing to say out loud.

But I think the lesson is too great to be eclipsed by my shame.  It’s important to realize that the driving factors here were external.  All along the way.  I wanted people to think good things about me, I didn’t necessarily want to be that good.

Now that I’m older, in control, and very very wise, I’m always judging the people around me. Students and friends alike, wondering why they have no ambition.  Why don’t they want to work harder and learn new things?

Which is why I had to write this.

My judgement is wrong.  It’s a mistake.  Afterall, it’s none of my doing that I have those traits now. Children and students, especially, should benefit from this revelation.

I think we should take a good long look at our best qualities and figure out how they got there.  That way, when we are teaching the next generation, whether by example or in front of a classroom, we can faithfully make them better people…by fastening on to their best qualities and giving them no other choice.

Posted in education, inspiration, musings, teaching | 5 Comments »

Advice Teachers Should Give

February 23rd, 2009

1. You do not need to know what you want to do with your life.  People will ask you this like you should have an answer, so you will probably answer with one of the usuals:  I want to be a doctor/lawyer/teacher/etc.  But what if you don’t, or what if you don’t know?  Tell the truth.  Tell them you’re still figuring out what you like.
2. You probably won’t use your degree the way you think you will or as people think it should be used.  These people don’t matter.  They will  not be paying you.
3. If you want to be ahead of the game, learn to read and write better than everyone you know.
4. You’re probably better off not choosing a path for your life.  Instead, choose the best of the options currently available.  Go for range, not domain.
5. Hang out with the smart people.  Not because they’re cool, and not because “you’ll be working for them one day”, but because being around smart people, makes you smarter.  It’s the closest thing you can get to learning by osmosis.
6. Never let anyone convince you that school of any kind is a waste of time.  Change your major twelve times, I don’t care.  Take classes that count for nothing, it doesn’t matter. The most valuable things you learn over the course of a class are rarely on the syllabus — or written anywhere, for that matter —  so take as many as you like, and make it interesting.
7. I can think of no advantages — not one — to graduating earlier than everyone else.  Oh sure, you’ll be the youngest whatever in the history of whatever, but that’s only going to last a year at the most.   Slow down.  Learn something.
8. You will have teachers that suck.  Deal with it.  Use them to figure out what you don’t want to be.
9. If you already know what you want to do, then find a need you can fill while you’re doing it.
10. Do something hard.

Number 10 may be the most important thing on the list.  This is what will give you the edge in interviews, it is what will make other people talk about you, it will be the thing you are remembered for.   Applications for schools, scholarships and jobs seem to be designed for answers that make you look like everyone else.  Number 10 is your saving grace, and it will almost never happen inside a classroom.

Posted in education, inspiration, musings, teaching | 7 Comments »

The Thing About Teaching

January 22nd, 2009

…is that you’re aiming at a moving target.

And it’s hard to say who you’re serving in the first place.  Is it the students?  Their parents? The board? The principal?

Oh sure.  Take the easy way out and say it’s the students.  No Child Left Behind.  All children have a right to learn.  Blah blah blah.  

There’s a very good argument out there that says that teachers are very much like prison wardens.

“And as for the schools, they were just holding pens within this fake world. Officially the purpose of schools is to teach kids. In fact their primary purpose is to keep kids locked up in one place for a big chunk of the day so adults can get things done. And I have no problem with this: in a specialized industrial society, it would be a disaster to have kids running around loose.”

Forget about that though, think about the audience:

“The top 10 in-demand jobs in 2010, did not exist in 2004:
We are preparing students for jobs that don’t yet exist.
To use technologies that don’t exist.
To solve problems we don’t even know are problems yet.“

embedded by Embedded Video

(Thanks Ryan, for sharing this video.)

It’s a moving target.  We can’t keep up.

So.  What does it take to be a good teacher?  If you listen to Paul Graham the best teachers have three things in common:

1. They have high standards. Like three year olds testing their parents, students will test teachers to see if they can get away with low-quality work or bad behavior. They won’t respect the teachers who don’t call them on it.
2. They liked students. Like dogs, kids can tell very accurately whether or not someone wishes them well. I think a lot of our teachers either never liked kids much, or got burned out and started not to like them. It’s hard to be a good teacher once that happens. I can’t think of one teacher in all the schools I went to who managed to be good despite disliking students.
3. They were interested in the subject. Most of the public school teachers I had weren’t really interested in what they taught. Enthusiasm is contagious, and so is boredom.

Which comes down to:  

1. Inspire them to see the world the way you do. 
2. Teach them to teach themselves.  

I happen to know one woman who is doing that:

“It is difficult to pinpoint the exact moment a student realizes that a project is bigger than him, bigger than the school, so big that it envelops the world at large. When a student realizes that what he is doing makes a difference and affects those outside of class, he changes. He recognizes his personal and professional worth, develops passion for his work, and understands what he can contribute to a team. Those intangible qualities lead to the pivotal moment in the transformation of a student from an individual who simply completes a job to one who understands the connection between the project and the outside world.”

( photo credit: local photographer, Craig Kolhruss )

( full article: Cable in The Classroom, Feb. 2007 )

[ Notes:  Just so everyone is clear, in the original text, where it says "my game design class", originally read, "the game design class".  I have proof. ]

Posted in education, geek, inspiration, teaching, technology | 2 Comments »

Full Disclosure

September 26th, 2008

I’m not a blogger.  Or a writer.  Or an editor, even.  But in a lot of ways, I’ve been doing these things for a couple of years.  I write things -> people read them -> I get feedback.  The only difference has been the audience.

Now for the first time, I’m putting the words where they belong.

These words pertain to my life as a geek, the way that I think, what I read, and things that have happened to me recently.  The medical fiasco that I wrote about in an email  titled “What Happened Before and a Little After” are the first first series of posts (just copy and pasted here).  Now available for the world to read and comment on.  Beyond that, I haven’t quite figured it out.

I’ll keep you posted — literally.

Wish me luck.

Posted in geek, inspiration, medical, technology | 7 Comments »