By Jill Pala
Tennessee is talking! Well, at least in a very small corner of Tennessee, Chattanooga to be precise, the community of Computer Science Educators is beginning to grow.
After the summer leadership cohort workshop in Chicago, I was excited to start working on the CSTA initiatives in my own state, but also a little overwhelmed. As a teacher at a private school, I was very much in my own bubble and had no idea what sort of CS programs were in place at other private schools or the Tennessee public schools. I decided to start small and make my first goal to identify teachers of Computer Science and other computing disciplines in my city and try to find enough people to start a local CSTA chapter. I figured I could deal with the state level later.
Then of course school started and any hopes of identifying and gathering these like minded individuals faded for a few months. Finally I found time to start calling around, and I was able to make contact with Dr. Joseph Kizza, the head of the Computer Science Department at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. I hit the jackpot! Dr. Kizza was not only very willing to host our meetings and participate in our chapter, he also had contacts with other K-12 teachers in the area! We arranged a first meeting to discuss chapter formation in February, and we had a whopping 4 people show up. Not to be discouraged, we had a great discussion about the purpose of a CSTA Chapter and what it would take to start the chapter, and decided to schedule another meeting in March to try to get more people to join us. Before the next meeting I went to the web sites of a few more local schools and found the people listed as Computer teachers and sent emails inviting them to our meeting, too. Our next meeting had 6 people attend! And only 3 were the same as the first meeting! Whoo hoo! We have enough to start a chapter!
In total we have identified 9 teachers from 7 different institutions interested in beginning our CSTA chapter. We keep trying new days and times to see if we can find the most accommodating meeting time. Our next meeting is April 12, and we plan to elect chapter leadership and finalize the chapter paperwork. Best of all, it is so wonderful to finally get a chance to talk to local people about our struggles and triumphs that we all face in our own schools. We’re really excited to get our Chattanooga CSTA chapter off the ground, and we can’t wait to grow even more. In fact, this year at SIGCSE in Milwaukee, I met another Tennessee teacher, Laine Agee from Memphis, who is chomping at the bit to start advocating for CSTA at the state level. We’re hoping that we can figure out a way to skype her in to our Chattanooga CSTA meetings, or even help her start identifying other teachers in her neck of the woods to start a Memphis CSTA chapter!
What strategies have you used to advocate for computer science education locally or at the state level?
Jill Pala
CSTA Leadership Cohort Member