My Teaching Days

Back before I was a programmer I used to be a world class teacher. I taught advanced comp and also calculus at the local community college to supplement my income.

I used to have very cool ways to make my class interested in the subject, with comp it was easy because everyone was interested in both their own writing and the writing of the rest of the class, but calculus was a bitch to get people involved.

I found that if you encouraged students that it really helped their ability to be involved and also to ask questions when they didn't understand.

"Mr. Ho, I have a question about derivatives, is it the power that becomes the main number or the number that becomes the power?"

"Tami, that's a good question..." then I would answer the question because I knew what a derivative was.

"Who can answer this question? Tami?"

"No, Tami, that was a very good guess, though. Well done, you were so close."

"Mr. Ho, can you go over that thing with Sin and Cos again...where you square them and then assign them the coefficient of Tan?"

"That's a very good question, Tami. Let me answer your question by asking you a question. When did they start letting retards take Calculus?"

Then Tami started crying and I started to feel a little bad.

"Stop crying, retard, I'll answer your question."

Sadly, this carried into my comp classes as well. Someone took to calling Tami "Little Miss Retard."

She took it to the administration, but you can't fire an instructor. Even a bad one. Because they're all witches and the administration is their coven.