Rob 2.0

Time may change me, but I can't trace time.

--David Bowie

"Changes"

Teaching Computer Applications is my second teaching career. As I usually tell my students sometime during the first week of class, I am really an English teacher. That's what my degree from the University of Iowa and my teaching license say, anyway. It's what I taught for the first 10 years of my career, starting at Stuart-Menlo High School where I was the English department for grades 10-12 for a year, then at Valley High School in West Des Moines for five years, and finally for four years at Southeast Polk Junior High.

When I had an opportunity to switch to computers, I jumped at it. I was ready for something new and different, and to be honest, the subject matter in junior high English classes isn't nearly as interesting as Creative Writing and Modern American Lit, my favorite classes to teach at Valley.

Strangely enough, even though I like the subject matter of high school English better than junior high English, I learned that I enjoyed teaching seventh graders more than teaching high school students. Junior high students, especially seventh graders, still have an innocence about them, even when they are acting like hormones with feet. I can't imagine walking into a class of juniors wearing the headphones from their computers, pretending to be airline pilots, but I have done just that with my seventh graders.

From time to time, someone will ask me if I will ever go back to teaching English. The answer is maybe, but if I do, it will be as a high school teacher. For now, however, I'm having fun spending my day with seventh graders, so I don't plan on making that change anytime in the near future.