Spring is the season of student teachers. Do you remember when you went out and worked with an older, experienced teacher to see what the job was really like? You probably started out sitting in the back of the room like a new student, taking notes and jotting down questions to discuss during the planning period. However, eventually, you would have taught a lesson all on your own. That may have been the day you decided that being a teacher was more than just a good idea, that it was your vocation.
I’m very curious how many computer science teachers did their student teaching in some other type of classroom, perhaps a math class or a business class, instead of a computer science class. When I was in college, I was discouraged from focusing on teaching computer science, even though I had already been hired as a CS teacher. In Pennsylvania, computer science is taught under either a math certification or a business certification, my district wanted me to get the business certification, and therefore I was expected to do my student teaching in a business class.
When you think about the 10,000 CS Teachers we want to have in classrooms in the very near future, it would mean we need each current CS teacher to host a student teacher. If you have never had a student teacher, you can get one by letting your local teacher prep college or university know that you are willing to host one. Many teacher prep programs now have a classroom component in several years, not just the last one. If we can get pre-service math and/or business teachers into our classrooms early in their post-secondary career, maybe we can convert some of them to be computer science teachers.
You are awesome! Share your classroom with an aspiring teacher!
Tammy Pirmann
CSTA School District Representative