Two Years as a Computer Science Teacher

It feels like such a short time ago that I announced here on LinkedIn that I had said goodbye to my company The Hyve and started as a computer science teacher. But it's actually been more than 2 years, and I'm now well into my third year as a teacher. So it's probably time to do an evaluation and update anyone interested on how it is going. In a word: great!

The first year of teaching is always a bit of a game of survival, I've been told, and that was also my experience. It was fun, for sure, but also quite engaging and challenging at times. Not at the level of running a company, certainly not if you do it part-time (I work 50%), but still enough to keep you head down in your work. Getting to know the kids, the subject matter and how to teach it, how to test it, how the school works, what your duties are etc. is probably a bit more challenging at the start than in an office job, because first impressions matter a lot in the classroom. It's easy to relax any rules you set, but the other way around is more difficult. And in order to know what your rules and red lines are, you have to know yourself and get experience, which you can in the end only get by throwing yourself into the process... But overall, it was great fun. I also learned a lot from studying CSEd at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (VU Amsterdam) with my great mentor Felienne Hermans - thanks again Felienne for all your wisdom and insights!

I created a bunch of new assignments, some very successful (designing websites with Figma!), others a bit too ambitious (like learning to commit to git using the command line... but to be fair many adult programmers even struggle with that). Today's kids may be 'digital natives', but it turns out that this means in practice that they are complete nitwits when it comes to computers. They haven't the slightest idea about the basics of a computer, such as the existence of storage devices, file systems (what is a folder?), using USB or HDMI connectors, or even how to type on a keyboard. Computers to them must be something like a car or bicycle is to most adults - a useful tool, and when it's broken you bring it to the repair shop, but you don't know much of what is inside. There is no vague MS-DOS command line or WordPerfect keyboard shortcuts experience to fall back on to as with many adults, everything is 'in the cloud' and just works. So I quickly figured out to teach them the basics first.

In the second year, I got a major extra task, namely to mentor 12 14-year-old boys. Because I was unlucky and got a class with a lot of 'challenging cases', this turned out to be almost as much work as my regular teaching activities. What struck me most is the lack of motivation many Dutch teenagers have when it comes to school. In PISA 2015, The Netherlands scores the lowest of all included countries when it comes to enjoyment of learning science (newer PISA data doesn't seem to include that question). But I can confirm that for most kids in my school, learning about school subjects is at the bottom of their priority list in life. I see this as a challenge and a gift - I get to tell them from experience how important these skills are for them to survive and make it in this world, not in the least digital skills! And to help them switch from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset, because many of them also tend to give up too easily ("Ik zou het niet weten meneer").

Now, in my third year, the fun is on, because I have mastered (I think) most of the necessary skills and know what to expect, so I'm getting to some of the topics that attracted me to teaching teenagers in the first place. At the top of that list is getting an understanding of how much the internet, phones and social media really change their life and their attitude towards the world. Somehow I feel vaguely responsible - it was my generation of tech nerds that brought this into being, and I used to think Facebook was awesome. The newspapers are always full of bad news and complaints about kids and their phone use, but that is nothing new - Socrates already lamented how unruly kids where, and it's always the next generation that is headed for ruin. So I'm more interested in details: how do they cope, what can we do as teachers, how can parents help?

One book that gathers a lot of attention is Jonathan Haidts' "The Anxious Generation ". I've read the book, and even went through some of the material with one of my classes, atheneum 5 (17 year olds). The shortest summary of the book: we protect our children too much in the real world, and not enough in the digital work. I would recommend anyone interested in the topic to read it. Surprisingly, the kids agreed with many of the observations and conclusions in the book. We did a quick data survey in the classroom, getting actual screen time from their phones. I did that before in earlier years too, and TikTok is almost always the most used app, with screen time typically varying between 1 to 5 hours per day (average of 2 hours). Instagram and Snapchat also on average get 1 hour per day each. That is already 4 hours on average just spent on scrolling 3 different social media apps. On top of that, there is apps like Youtube, Whatsapp, games, and school work, so it's true that they spent way more time at screens than I do.

Haidt argues that one of the consequences of spending hours on social media is that this time cannot be used for normal social development, leading to impairment of interpersonal skills, emotional maturity, risk taking in social situations etc., all of which I personally definitely recognize in my students. When I brought this up with the kids, I half expected someone to bring up that social media also have benefits and that you can learn from for example videos on Youtube (that's what I do a lot!) But no, all of them immediately agreed that time spent on social media is essentially wasted. Instead, they focused more on explaining that scrolling social media is downtime for them, and they only do it if not otherwise occupied, so it doesn't really matter. I don't exactly buy that argument, but since social media seems to be an irreversible part of their life, I now focus more on discussing dangers and pitfalls such as cyberbullying, misinformation, influence operations, harmful content etc., and they do appreciate discussing and learning about this. Also, although literally every kid will have social media accounts, I have to say not all teenagers are participating heavily. Some spend hardly any time on social media for weeks. These kids also tend to be the ones with high test results, especially on tests that focus on memorization.

Another topic that interests me and that I have started to discuss more with my students, especially the ones in their final year, is their career perspective. When I was a teenager, it was just standard practice to 'maximize your chances', so I went for gymnasium, and then did two academic studies (Computer Science and Primary School Teaching). However, I'm not sure it is a good idea for kids with the brains to automatically go for the highest level of education attainable. It goes against my nature to even bring this up, because I love universities and have many good friends and colleagues teaching and studying interesting and relevant topics. But if you look at it from a career perspective and goals such as being able to afford having a family or buying a house, going to study at a university (especially popular generic studies such as Psychology or Law) may not be the best choice. There is student debt, the evolution of AI, and on the other hand hefty pay raises and demand for hands-on and technical jobs such as carpenting, installation, the military and yes also IT jobs. My goal is of course not to discourage them from studying, but mainly to get them to think and expand a bit more effort on visualizing their future. We have a 'decaan' (my great colleague Lydia Weijmer ) and study choice counseling at school, but it is truly astonishing to me how little time and effort most kids spend on this. "Ik zou het echt niet weten meneer, geen idee!" One of my ideas is to have them create a personal financial planning for their next 10 years, or maybe develop a few scenarios. Any advice on how to approach is this very welcome. As are good arguments on why a university education can still add value for today's teenagers - maybe you can come in my classroom and encourage and enlighten them!