This week, I have officially finished my first stint as an Adjunct Faculty at the Pittsburgh Technical Institute.
So I’m sort of a teacher now.
Like. Officially.
It was an interesting line of events that started with a question on the sidelines of our summer softball league and led to teaching three classes of two levels of Web Design. Everything from HTML to a smattering of JQuery. It was an eye opening experience in both my abilities, and some possibilities.
Who Wants To Learn. This was made evident by an adjunct in service I attended. After starting to see the signs of who’s there to learn skills and who’s there to get an A, it’s interesting to look at some of my other interactions since a lot of what I’m doing day to day is teaching people how to do something or why I’m doing a particular thing for them.
New Perspectives. My grandfather asked if I was learning something from it. hoo-boy am I. Going over these classes are a great refresher of some standard things I could be doing better, and some new perspectives.
The More Things Change… Not so much an education thing, but how is it that kids are wearing the exact same band shirts as when I was at the Art Institute circa 2000-2004? Has nothing new come out? Is it still all about ICP and Slipknot? (Confssion: I own about 10 ICP shirts from that era still)
Overall, I had a great time over my first, of hopefully many, quarters over at PTI. I love the environment and truly feel they’re doing the right thing to prep these kids. I’ve had the fortune to work with interns from the field, and see the want to keep ahead of the curve, and the right things taking place.
It’s been a great new adventure…