Mastodawn

Thanks everyone for the kind words! This is by no means guaranteed--I have to take about 24 semester hours of classes, complete "field work" in HS classrooms, and eventually go through 10 weeks of student teaching. Plus there's the challenge of finding a job as a late career switcher. I like my odds (and math is a decently solid place to be as far as teacher demand), but I definitely don't think it's going to be easy.

At the very least, it's unlikely to be boring ;-).

I'm probably going to throw my hat into the rough and tumble ring of substitute teaching while I'm working on it. Mainly as a way to make a lot of contacts and to provide some foundation for my level of "seriousness" when the later job search starts.

In terms of what might be most opposite of teaching on Zoom, substitute HS teaching might be right up there.

As I was telling someone the other day, "I really need to get myself right in the middle of some crazy shit."

vy Mar 14

@dabeaz living in America doesn’t do it for you?

Scott Koranda Mar 14

@dabeaz Having a 70's King trombone could help with that...

@skoranda Hell yeah. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=f0E3eqqLZdQ

Fred Wesley & The J.B.'s - Doing It To Death (Stereo)

YouTube

deech Mar 14

@dabeaz are you thinking the public school system?

@deech Yes. A big public inner-suburban HS preferably.

deech Mar 14

@dabeaz Kudos! IIRC Peter Seibel (the Lisp guy) also made a similar switch a few years ago. On the off chance that you don't know of each other that may be a good connection. https://gigamonkeys.com/resume/

Resume

@deech Oh, interesting. Thanks for sharing.

Curt Olson Mar 14

@dabeaz Wishing you all the best!

Stefan Eissing Mar 14

@dabeaz All the best and godspeed!

Steve Purcell Mar 14

@dabeaz you're going to rock this -- I'm excited for you!

Patrick Dubroy Mar 14

@dabeaz Congrats on your admission and best of luck in your next chapter!!

Anthony Mar 14

@dabeaz Congratulations. My wife moved from the math/business world to become an early elementary special education teacher in the same way. It’s a fast-paced few years, but she loves it.

Tim Chase Mar 14

@dabeaz wishing you great joy & success as you begin the next chapter of life!

jacobian Mar 14

@dabeaz Congratulations! You’re going to be an *excellent* math teacher — if I’d had someone like you in high school I wouldn’t have spent so many years of my life thinking math was boring and terrible

Oliver Andrich Mar 14

@dabeaz Wow! Congrats. I am sure, you will be a great teacher.

Paul Zuradzki Mar 14

@dabeaz congrats and excited for you! Very grateful and lucky to have taken your courses IRL and online. There is indeed a magic to the in-person experience. Learned a lot from your courses, talks, and books. Your future students will be lucky to have you too.

Trey Hunner 🐍Mar 14

"So, while I expect this whole affair to be difficult and messy, it also seems like a place of honor where good work might make a positive difference."

I completely agree.

I'm excited to hear you'll be teaching in person, teaching the youth, and teaching something you love. 💗

@dabeaz good luck in this transition!

Alyssa Coghlan Mar 14

@dabeaz 4 of my siblings (out of 6) are teachers or former teachers of one flavour or another, which has both convinced me I never want to be a teacher in formal schooling, while also giving me the utmost respect for those that do choose to do it :)

I might try to convince you to take an Australian holiday that just coincidentally lines up with PyCon AU's education seminar though!

Andy Wingo Mar 14

@dabeaz gosh this sounds very excellent, looking forward to hearing more!!

Omar Antolín Mar 14

@dabeaz I hope you find great satisfaction in this! Judging by your programming talks, you'll be a fantastic teacher.

Bart Coppens Mar 14

@dabeaz congrats, and have a lot of fun!

Simon Wolf Mar 14

@dabeaz I’m hugely pleased to hear you’re moving on to something that will keep you doing a thing you love and are fantastic at… teaching. Having watched a lot of your Python conference videos, your future students are in for a treat and I’m oddly envious of them. I have a strong feeling you’ll be one of those teachers they look back on and remember very fondly.

SnoopJ Mar 14

@dabeaz congrats and best wishes!

@dabeaz Congrats!

@dabeaz congratulations!

@dabeaz good luck!

@dabeaz congrats and good luck!

Adrian Holovaty Mar 14

@dabeaz Congrats on this new chapter! Reading this made me reminisce about my favorite high-school math teacher, and I realized that personality-wise you remind me of him. I can easily imagine you thriving and making a lasting impact on young minds.

Mike Pirnat Mar 15

@dabeaz Amazing! I wish you the best of luck.

Chris Adams Mar 15

@dabeaz that's a great choice, I think you'll enjoy it! My wife did neuroscience to AP {Bio, Psych} and has had a lot of good experiences along with the annoyances (admins) and letdowns (kids who could but don't yet get why doing well matters).

She did an alt route program here in DC where a high school could hire her full-time as soon as she was enrolled in night school. Busy but not too bad–the proctored test was more stressful since she had to refresh on areas outside of her specialization.

@acdha Interesting. Did your wife have an "in" at schools or did she simply apply for jobs with no license? They have alternative licensure here, but it seems tricky to navigate.

@dabeaz She had started an alternative route program in New Haven when she was souring on academia during her postdoc (in her area the baseline costs are high so you basically spend most time being a small business landing scarce funding) but didn't complete that before we moved to DC.

She interviewed directly at a mix of DCPS and charter schools (and a $$$ private school which paid very little), and got an offer from a principal whose staff helped keep DCPS HR moving.

@dabeaz around here even back then (2010) there was a pipeline of disaffected scientists (fed. pay often low & often have a max time, vs. DCPS paying teachers close to top in the country) so it sounded like half of what the schools were looking for was confirming that someone bringing content knowledge could handle working with teenagers & especially people who don't have strong self-motivation.

@acdha My understanding of the alternative licensure path here is that it's mostly people who already have some kind of "in" at a school someplace. For example, teachers looking to jump from private->public. Or staff already working at a public school who want to move from something like a teacher's aide to teacher. Theoretically, it might be possible land a position from the outside, but it seems tough. I'm not going to worry about it.

@dabeaz I'd also believe that DC is special because we have such a need for teachers, especially STEM, and they're competing with a lot of very close suburban school districts.

@acdha Does DC have a residency requirement? I can't actually apply for any jobs in Chicago PS because I don't live within the city limits.

@dabeaz No. I think DC residents get weighted higher but in-demand subjects aren't turning people away.

I believe most of the alternative route teachers do program which is one year as a fellow paired with another teacher and then 3 years teaching, all at a high need school.

My wife's first school had most of the science department as former Ph.D researchers who'd hit the funding wall (never thought that'd seem like a good market but talking w/her grad advisor, now is just soul-crushing).

@acdha Wow. Interesting. Weirdly enough, I am currently on the fastest, most unencumbered path to licensure now. Start classes now. Student teaching in the winter. License in the spring as a "free-agent" to work anywhere after that.

Erik Mar 16

@dabeaz This is a great and inspiring read. Good luck in the new career!