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realizations and boring narrative
Jun. 3rd, 2003 11:09 pmI've been gradually working out my idea of what I Really Want -- so I'll tell you what I want, what I really really want. I really really really wanna zig-a-zig-ahhh. *blinks a few times, face straightens out* But aside from that, I think that I might be a teacher. It might be that my purpose isn't to be the most elite myself, but to find the kids that have the potential to be the most elite and help them get to that point. Maybe this will involve being a researcher at a university, or maybe it will involve younger kids. Maybe the kids with the potential to be the most elite don't really need me to do that, though... they'd get there on their own. Everybody could benefit from a good teacher along the way, though...
I think, more than Amazing Hacker Skills and Huge Programming Muscles (while I'd like these as well), what I really admire in people is a stage presence. I think university professors, and teaching assistants, and everybody, really, has a lot to learn from the non-whack MCs of the world -- just the ability to get people to listen to what you have to say for a whole hour, even if you're just spitting clever wordplay, is a really impressive feat. There are a lot of brilliant brilliant people out there who have jobs in teaching, one way or another (especially in universities) who aren't that amazing as public speakers -- then again, there are those who manage to put together content-free lectures, but that's another matter altogether...
In the past few days, I had the urge to try all of this out, to try and get to some younger kids and get some CS into their heads... and the first victim has been my stepsister Taren, who's got a lot of free time on her hands this summer... and I asked if she wanted to start in on learning to write code... and it's kinda strange -- I'm not sure if she said that she'd do it because I asked and she doesn't want to offend (probably the most likely) or if she's really got an interest. If she really had an interest, she'd probably have taken it up on her own, or asked me -- but she's at least willing to humour me. She might hate it. I told her she'd probably hate it, and that it's going to be hard and frustrating and take forever. I hope it works out well...
What do you guys think about a first language? I'm thinking that Java might not be a bad start -- it would make it relatively easy to pick up C-ish languages later, and it's not ... well, actually Java sucks, and it's frustrating and picky and the whole classpath thing could be really infuriating...
If she seems really deeply interested, then probably C would be a better idea. Maybe we could learn Pascal together...
Poor Taren... so many people try really hard to mould her...
Also, I called up Mr. Gargiulo from my old highschool and asked about this summer's summer camps that they were putting on. Two years ago (the summer after I graduated) I taught their Webpages-n-Programming camp for a week, which was a lot of fun, and I asked if I might teach it again -- he said they didn't have a teacher yet, but last he checked, there weren't any students, either. So maybe after we get back from Europe, I'll have a job for a bit. Assuming somebody signs up.
*laughs* ... you'd think that with all of this yammering about teaching people stuff, I'd have been a half-decent TA...
So Sunday night into Monday morning, I was working on my device driver for the Linux Kernel class, and that turned out pretty well, and I was happy :) Dr. Baker seemed to be fairly satisfied with it, at least... I made some semi-nonstandard decisions while putting my driver together (it didn't act quite how he expected -- I chose to only allow one opening at once, and didn't use the same file datastructure, and had more stuff be persistent from one opening to the next than you might expect...) but it was all consciously chosen. Mine was pretty cool, but Brett's driver was amazingly l337 :)
... and between now and the Near Future, we should come up with a group name for our Final Project Group -- Brett and Gil and myself are making a driver for these frame-grabber video input card things that don't have any Linux drivers for them, yet.
Hrum, and tomorrow, I'm going to go and run with the cross-country team in the morning. I didn't do that today, out of the silly urge to get in an extra hour and a half of sleep. Who needs sleep, anyway?
I think, more than Amazing Hacker Skills and Huge Programming Muscles (while I'd like these as well), what I really admire in people is a stage presence. I think university professors, and teaching assistants, and everybody, really, has a lot to learn from the non-whack MCs of the world -- just the ability to get people to listen to what you have to say for a whole hour, even if you're just spitting clever wordplay, is a really impressive feat. There are a lot of brilliant brilliant people out there who have jobs in teaching, one way or another (especially in universities) who aren't that amazing as public speakers -- then again, there are those who manage to put together content-free lectures, but that's another matter altogether...
In the past few days, I had the urge to try all of this out, to try and get to some younger kids and get some CS into their heads... and the first victim has been my stepsister Taren, who's got a lot of free time on her hands this summer... and I asked if she wanted to start in on learning to write code... and it's kinda strange -- I'm not sure if she said that she'd do it because I asked and she doesn't want to offend (probably the most likely) or if she's really got an interest. If she really had an interest, she'd probably have taken it up on her own, or asked me -- but she's at least willing to humour me. She might hate it. I told her she'd probably hate it, and that it's going to be hard and frustrating and take forever. I hope it works out well...
What do you guys think about a first language? I'm thinking that Java might not be a bad start -- it would make it relatively easy to pick up C-ish languages later, and it's not ... well, actually Java sucks, and it's frustrating and picky and the whole classpath thing could be really infuriating...
If she seems really deeply interested, then probably C would be a better idea. Maybe we could learn Pascal together...
Poor Taren... so many people try really hard to mould her...
Also, I called up Mr. Gargiulo from my old highschool and asked about this summer's summer camps that they were putting on. Two years ago (the summer after I graduated) I taught their Webpages-n-Programming camp for a week, which was a lot of fun, and I asked if I might teach it again -- he said they didn't have a teacher yet, but last he checked, there weren't any students, either. So maybe after we get back from Europe, I'll have a job for a bit. Assuming somebody signs up.
*laughs* ... you'd think that with all of this yammering about teaching people stuff, I'd have been a half-decent TA...
So Sunday night into Monday morning, I was working on my device driver for the Linux Kernel class, and that turned out pretty well, and I was happy :) Dr. Baker seemed to be fairly satisfied with it, at least... I made some semi-nonstandard decisions while putting my driver together (it didn't act quite how he expected -- I chose to only allow one opening at once, and didn't use the same file datastructure, and had more stuff be persistent from one opening to the next than you might expect...) but it was all consciously chosen. Mine was pretty cool, but Brett's driver was amazingly l337 :)
... and between now and the Near Future, we should come up with a group name for our Final Project Group -- Brett and Gil and myself are making a driver for these frame-grabber video input card things that don't have any Linux drivers for them, yet.
Hrum, and tomorrow, I'm going to go and run with the cross-country team in the morning. I didn't do that today, out of the silly urge to get in an extra hour and a half of sleep. Who needs sleep, anyway?
