My freshers are amazing.

[kaberett]

No, really, they have been here for all of a week, and-- and. And one of the things my new department does, right, is it takes all its first-year students and shoves them all into a compulsory course entitled Programming for Geoscientists in their very first term. I think this is a really good idea, actually: one of the things I am thoroughly irritated with my undergrad institution for doing is not introducing us to coding at all until third year, and even then it was "run Dan's 40-year-old FORTRAN and maybe tweak a couple of variables", which - isn't really good enough, in my oh so humble opinion.

So. I'm in a room containing approximately ninety approximately 18 year olds, freshly arrived at university, most of whom appear to be at least a little scared of computers. Things go wrong, of course: they always go wrong, but in particular the tech set-up for getting them started with iPython notebook was a bit of a disaster, one of the two student servers they were supposed to be using didn't have git installed, and so on. Initial faff, followed by a bit of lecturing, and then... I got to teach.

I think the best bit of all for me was, unsurprisingly, getting to put my thoughts on tech confidence into practice -- and, hey, guess what, it worked.

Seriously, the grins on their little faces: when they called me over in despair and frustration because it wasn't working, and they couldn't see why, and it was a superfluous or missing bit of punctuation, and I spent a minute or two hunting it, and then talked them through how to find it, and then told them that that thing they just did? That thing they just did was an actual thing that real programmers do, ergo they were a real programmer. (See: Things Real Dreamwidth Programmers Do.)

Or when they flagged me down because they didn't understand the wretched error message, and I prompted them through it, and they worked it out and debugged it by themselves, and I got to point out that they'd just debugged their code and this was a skill that was going to stand them in good stead.

Or when I told them that future!them was going to love them for the amazing job they'd done of commenting their snippets.

Or: the kid who was still poking at the last two exercises when the practical finished, and who was extraordinarily grateful when I told them that I'd nothing else to do so would be sticking around for another little while and they were welcome to grab me if they wanted me, and who very eventually plucked up the courage to actually ask me something. And we talked through it, and we talked through the importance of getting the computer to do as much of the tedious maths as you can, and about different approaches to problems and why one might be better than the other, and data types and strings and how they were being constructed, and who got it (and who told me I was a good teacher, which, ♥!). (And it wasn't just that one kid I ended up doing the data types &c explanation for; quite a few of them got it, and they were all SO PLEASED when it clicked and they understood what was happening, instead of it being a black box.)

And my favourite of all, quite apart from all of them talking and sharing ideas and results and research (and the dudebros who were signalling their insecurities a little more loudly than they realised, I think, when they turned to each other, snapped their fingers, and exclaimed "BOOM! Question ANSWERED."), was this: the one who started out completely convinced that they didn't have the brain for it and couldn't do it and were never going to get it, and spent the first ninety minutes becoming increasingly convinced that they were useless despite my best efforts... and then they did. I came back to check on them a little while later to find that they'd answered one of the more tedious questions completely correctly and completely solo: they were so pleased. And, obviously, I congratulated them - because they bloody well deserved the praise - and then I asked them if they'd like some constructive criticism, while clarifying that what they'd got worked fine and they were completely welcome to skip it if they just wanted to go home. "... oh gods no go on then have at it," they said, or something to that effect, and so I started explaining about code optimisation and duplicated effort... and before I'd finished, and without prompting, they once again got it and fixed it. Just like that. And just - the look on their face when they realised that not only had they written correct code, they'd optimised it, and everything still worked -- I nearly burst into tears of delight on the spot, okay.

---

Towards the end, as people were starting to leave, I ended up chatting with a couple of the other demonstrators. As people wandered past us, I grinned at the students I'd particularly spent time talking to and congratulated them, told them they'd done well, and said I looked forward to seeing them next week. And they smiled back and said goodbye.

The other TAs did not do the same thing, did not get the same response; and they actually remarked on this to me, about how it was good to have a happy smiley person around. And, actually, I think it really was: I think "my" students really did respond well to how I was interacting with them.

My faculty offers a certificate in teaching. I was sort of thinking about going for it; I'm now definitely going to. One of the requirements is that one prepares a statement about one's teaching philosophy, and honestly, for me that is going to be not only easy but fun.

Because it goes more or less like this: compassionate teaching produces confidence.

So there we go; that's a thing I'm going to be working toward. Hurrah my lovely, lovely first years. <3

Comments

[silverhare]

This all sounds really, really lovely.

[kaberett]

It really was. I've barely stopped grinning all evening.

[milkymoon]

I'm glad that your first week as a demonstrator has been so lovely~ ^^ (And it is also good to know that the university is making sure that the freshers are getting the coding knowledge at the very beginning as opposed to having them wait. ^^)

[kaberett]

Thank you. ♥

[jenett]

This. So very awesome.

And yes, about teaching, about seeing someone get it, about seeing them slot something in that isn't just about this moment, but about how they interact with all sorts of things in their future.

(Which is both about confidence and self-image, and about broader views of the world than 'how do I solve this particular problem')

[kaberett]

I am SO proud of every single one of them, seriously.

[jelazakazone]

Hurray! I love that you share these happy-making things :D

[kaberett]

♥!

[untonuggan]

I WISH ALL MY TEACHERS HAD BEEN LIKE YOU.

[cadenzamuse]

+1 million!

[kaberett]

This is so much of why I am doing this, seriously <3

[jjhunter]

<3

(Phrased more directly in my case: I WANT YOU AS MY TEACHER so badly in this *is jealous of your lucky, lucky freshers*)

You rock so much your rocks rock. Or something like that. ;o)

[ghoti]

kabs is granite.

[kaberett]

welp, you know where to find me for free teaching insofar as transcontinental stuff and things go <3

[kaberett]

I wanted teachers like me, too, and that's a huge part of why I'm trying to do it this way, this now, because - yes. Because this being what they experienced in their first week of university is likely, as liv said in a discussion elsewhere, to make a serious impression on them in a very long-term sense, and - this is a thing I can do. This is a thing I can do to make the world better.

[rmc28]

*grin* and you are doing it :-)

[untonuggan]

You make my world better just by existing.

[swaldman]

*applause*
The world needs more teachers who are actually good at it.

I'm demonstrating for the first time tomorrow... wish me luck ;-)

[fyreharper]

You are awesome and yay for your students also being awesome and, you, this, doing it right. Yes. <3

[alexseanchai]

WOOT WOOT

[forthwritten]

This is such a joyful thing to read - you're awesome.

I love it when teaching clicks like that and you can actually watch their brains ticking. I don't think I ever adored my students more than when they practically did the seminar themselves and when their questions and direction of thinking was spot-on.

[hilarita]

Awesome!!!!!

[pipisafoat]

enjoyed reading this yes. i like your goodness. and how you spread it all over the place.

[worlds_of_smoke]

Go you!!! ♥

[shadowspar]

Amazing. Amazing Amazing Amazing. :D

You == awesome. <3

[silveradept]

I'm so glad that you received such a beautiful validation of your methods, and that your freshers are getting it so well.

If we had more teachers with your methods, I think we would have many more people who don't feel intimidated by coding, technology, and the really neat things we can do and create with both of those skills.

[calissa]

Your joy absolutely radiates off the screen. Your students are very lucky to have such a wonderful teacher :)

[oyceter]

AWWWWWWW! That is the best! You and your students are the best!

[crazyscot]

*cheers* :D

[littlebutfierce]

Wow, this is awesome. :D

[shehasathree]

yay!

[rjw76]

Oh, so much this about teaching. It's why I'm still lab demonstrating, four years after my PhD crashed and burned. And why I hate so much that people who sit in the middle of the lab with their own work, only talking to students when approached, are being paid the same as me for doing it. When I'd give serious thought to doing it for free.

[nanila]

This post is MADE OF WIN. Yes, yes and more yes. This is certainly how I learn best and I wish I'd had more teachers and lecturers like you.

[tamouse]

The awesomeness of teaching *well* -- Thank you for posting this. It seems so *rare* in tech circles to find people who will spend a bit of time, work with people's fears, guide them enough to let them push through themselves... well done, truly well done.