Teaching

So the teaching gig is going all right. But not great.

Issues:

The no curriculum thing is really a drag. I don’t think I’d want to be stuck with slavishly following an existing curriculum. But starting off with no curriculum has been difficult. I spend a couple of hours each day planning what to cover in the four hours in the afternoon.

Classroom management. Specifically, I really don’t know how to handle the differing speeds at which each of the students are picking this up. One student struggles with the basics of HTML syntax, while another wants me to teach him Javascript.

Teenage attention span. I swear they all have A.D.D. They all want to try out the fancy HTML/CSS toys and go way off track. Which is fine to a degree, as I don’t want them to learn the one true way of Web development. But they get themselves into dead ends from which they don’t know how to extricate themselves. Getting them individually unstuck takes up a lot of time.

And lastly, while none of these issues are really all that major, I don’t have a teaching support network. I have general support and encouragement from friends, but that’s not what I’m looking for. Specifically, what I wish I had is people who can answer questions like I’m trying to do X, how do I do it? and this happened, what do I do? People I don’t have to seek out, but who are already there. I don’t have a breakroom with other teachers, for instance. That would be awesome.

Still glad I took the job, but wishing I knew how to do it better.