Teaching HTML and CSS

[nemorathwald]

As in almost every job, I am now teaching the other employees how to do my job when I am no longer here. Their progress is excellent. I am also teaching one of the EMU faculty, who likes to create websites in off hours, and is very interested and capable.

This semester, all three of my classes are covering the same material I am teaching my co-workers: creating websites in HTML and CSS, and how to put them on the web. I have known how to do this for ten years.

I'm taking the basic classes in my last semester because they filled up too quickly in previous semesters. It's easier to get into more advanced classes, because so many students drop out before reaching them.

I would have liked this to be an opportunity to learn advanced CSS techniques, but my classmates are mostly fresh out of high school, or older people who are uncomfortable with computers. Imagine that driving is second nature to you because you drive every day, but for some reason you have to re-take driver's training with a 16-year-olds. You are not going to learn any advanced driving skills. The assignments I am given are the equivalent of driving 20 miles per hour in a parking lot full of cones.

In two classes (not jer_'s, who is really good at this) it is the equivalent of doing this repetitively for hours. And then writing an essay about it, in which the driver's ed instructor only grades you for spelling.

I am not allowed to test out.

I didn't get student aid with which to buy textbooks until more than a month had passed. So, ultimately I decided not to buy three expensive textbooks, that all cover the same material, which I have known for years. The problem is that two of the teachers (not jer_) let the textbook do the teaching and just issue assignments as "Do Chapter 4". This means that I don't know what the assignment is unless I borrow a textbook. So I just do that in class, and get as much done as possible before class ends. The time-consuming portion involves typing out entire webpages about Alaskan natural parks, as if it were a typing class.

(jer_ invents the assignments himself and tells us what they are, so I am doing well in his class.)

It is ironic to be poorly evaluated on the material I know best, but that's because it bores me. I'd rather pass the other two classes with a D than jump through hoops with training wheels on, and increase my debt with hundreds of dollars worth of textbooks, for no benefit. If the benefit is to impress the sort of employer who is impressed by pointless bureaucratic busy-work in obedience to their authority, then for me it is a failed value proposition. That is a decision for which I accept responsibility. I'm already on the Dean's list with a 4.0; and the difference it will make to my GPA is not that important to my quality of life anyway.

Comments

[matt-arnold.livejournal.com]

The last time I tried that, they said no. I think most of them don't want to teach two classes for the price of one.