Never Again will I Say I'm Just a Teacher
I spent the last 3 days at the Hershey Lodge in Hershey, PA with my fellow comrades at the annual PETE&C (Pennsylvania Educational Technology Expo and Conference). This has quickly become the event I look forward to most each school year. A few days with my fellow technology educators inspires and rejuvenates my passion for teaching and my experience this year did not let me down! As I sat in sessions seeing how technology is being used in so many ways to improve our student's learning experiences and to provide them with opportunities we never could have imagined before I couldn't wait to return to my classroom. The final keynote speaker was Dr. Luis Cruz and he was the crescendo to PETE&C.
Dr. Cruz spoke of how teaching is about saving student lives. He recounted stories of students he has worked with in Los Angeles, CA. How they were able to overcome tremendous obstacles to become successful and productive members of our society. That was because of TEACHERS! Teachers knew that they could be better than their situation and kept after their students to stay with their education. These teachers saved student lives!
I am inspired, I have a mission... we need to start saving student lives by teaching them essential computer science skills that every industry is in desperate search of. From the medical field to the fashion industry, the ability to code and program computers is a skill being coveted. We have all been teachers of reading, writing, problem solving and arithmetic, lets add coding to this list. No matter your curriculum or subject matter, you should be incorporating these valuable ideas into your lesson plans.
Start simple with puzzles and teamwork. Both of these are a big part of computer science. The ability to approach a problem from various angles and work with others to solve them is nothing new to education.
Dr. Cruz finished his keynote with this idea. We have all been in social situations where someone says "Oh, you're just a teacher". Dr. Cruz empowered his listeners to never allow this to be said again about our profession, for "We are members of an elite team dedicated to the arduous task of saving student lives."
