As many of my friends have been asking me recently, How did I get involved this thing?. Cutting the long story short, couple of people who organized this workshop are very good friends of mine and we happened to have similar interests. Karen S and Eli had spent numerous hours/days in designing the syllabus, and we had few hour-long meetings discussing how to present what we wanted to present. After (and amidst) some anticipation and anxiety, this DAPCEP IT (Detroit Area Pre-College Engineering Program) workshop started off last Sunday with a brief orientation for the participants (10 high-schoolers and their teachers). Slide shows shown during this orientation showed them the layout of the university as well as an insight into local history.

Week started off on a rather slow note but since we knew it would, we started off the workshop by surveying the kids - something to get them talking. First it was a survey of what they knew (turning a computer on & off, using the internet, downloading from the internet, checking emails, word-processing, excel, powerpoint, etc.) and how much they knew of it - in order to get an idea of the knowledge-spectrum of the class and more importantly, to know about those kids who needed extra attention. Then, they listed what they like about computers and what they don’t (annoyances) - and needless to mention, the latter list was much bigger. Some amount of time was dedicated to show them methods of graphing the data (by hand) and later in the afternoon, kids spent time at the SDC - shooting baskets. It was nice of some Tech Basketball players (and friends of mine - Bob Evans, Radayl Richardson, Robby Springborn and Josh) to give some shooting tips and watch while they were shooting. I am quite sure kids loved it. The act of shooting the basketball also served the purpose of collecting useful data - which they used to plot using Excel the next day.

So, the next few days rolled on with participants learning about different aspects of computers as well as science - methods of data collection, analysis and presentation. Syllabus also included combined sessions, often hands-on, where students shared their knowledge with their teachers. What impressed me the most was the dedication of teachers - they often came in early, sometimes skipped lunch and did everything possible to learn the material; and once students warmed-up, they had lot of fun too. Short field trips, techniques in digital photography, post-processing with Photoshop, making movies, principles of software design, etc… - gave the participants wide range of things to chew on. Some of the photos I shot during these days are here.

What did I learn, you ask? — lot of things to be honest. Importantly, I re-realized the fact that teaching can be lot of fun. Following is the excerpt from Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman (Dignified Professor chapter) - a book that one should read, if haven’t already. But don’t get me wrong, I have my highest respect for those who do research all the time as they expand the frontiers of knowledge by pushing the barriers far and wide than we ever imagined - society also needs some who can teach the pass such knowledge onto students.

I don’t believe I can really do without teaching. The reason is, I have to have something so that when I don’t have any ideas and I’m not getting anywhere I can say to myself, “At least I’m living; at least I’m doing something; I’m making some contribution” — it’s just psychological.

When I was at Princeton in the 1940s I could see what happened to those great minds at the Institute for Advanced Study, who had been specially selected for their tremendous brains and were now given this opportunity to sit in this lovely house by the woods there, with no classes to teach, with no obligations whatsoever. These poor bastards could now sit and think clearly all by themselves, OK? So they don’t get any ideas for a while: they have every opportunity to do something, and they’re not getting any ideas. I believe that in a situation like this a kind of guilt or depression forms inside of you, and you begin to worry about not getting any ideas. And nothing happens. Still no ideas come.

Nothing happens because there’s not enough real activity and challenge: You’re not in contact with the experimental guys. You don’t have to think how to answer questions from the students. Nothing!

In any thinking process there are moments when everything is going good and you’ve got wonderful ideas. Teaching is an interruption, and so it’s the greatest pain in the neck in the world. And then there are the longer periods of time when not much is coming to you. You’re not getting any ideas, and if you’re doing nothing at all, it drives you nuts! You can’t even say “I’m teaching my class.”

If you’re teaching a class, you can think about the elementary things that you know very well. These things are kind of fun and delightful. It doesn’t do any harm to think them over again. Is there a better way to present them? Are there any new problems associated with them? Are there any new thoughts you can make about them? The elementary things are easy to think about; if you can’t think of a new thought, no harm done; what you thought about it before is good enough for the class. If you do think of something new, you’re rather pleased that you have a new way of looking at it.

The questions of the students are often the source of new research. They often ask profound questions that I’ve thought about at times and then given up on, so to speak, for a while. It wouldn’t do me any harm to think about them again and see if I can go any further now. The students may not be able to see the thing I want to answer, or the subtleties I want to think about, but they remind me of a problem by asking questions in the neighborhood of that problem. It’s not so easy to remind yourself of these things.

So I find that teaching and the students keep life going, and I would never accept any position in which somebody has invented a happy situation for me where I don’t have to teach. Never.

Thanks to Dr. P, our department (esp. Beth who did all the required paper-work), organizers and fellow instructors, I was very fortunate to have had this opportunity to work with kids for a week. I got to know of fellow instructors (Erin K and Karen K), many more known/previously-unknown people in the Humanities (Matt Hill, Jim Oliver, Michael, …) and 23 people from down-state. I have kinda started liking the CCLI (a.k.a computer lab) in Humanities - for one, it’s air-conditioned (or at least, it feels like it is) and second, it has a separate Mac section, which is really very cool. I am glad that kids got to use Macs too - as many of them later admitted that they would never want to use a Windows machine again. With the help of Erin and Karens (S and K), I will probably learn more about Photoshop, get tips to improve my manual-writing skills, and enhance my website. Wish I was part of something like this long time ago - I would have known these people for long, would have shared (and gained) information, written better manuals (which our users actually READ), …

But such is life - nothing ever happens before its time and beyond one’s destiny. I am just glad that it was finally my turn Here’s a template (sample) of the certificates (designed by Erin) kids got at the end of this 5-day workshop. Pretty cool, heh?

There are some things that I don’t like about such short-duration workshops. It usually takes about 2-3 days for participants to get warmed up & get used to the new environment & instructors. By the time we really start to jell together as a team, it’s about time for them to leave. To see participants call their instructors not-so-entertaining on day one and regard them as cool by day five can and does bring about lot of satisfaction, and hints at a job well done. To me, like every other instructor, it was very heart-warming to be hugged by almost every participant and to be asked to sign in their books.

But again, such is life - things happen, people come and go, but memories just (sometimes) stay forever…