The Tale of the White Math Teacher

From previous posts, and my obvious profile picture, I am pretty much the whitest guy you can ever meet. I grew up in the country, riding horses, bailing hay, tending gardens, and lived my first years on a plot of roughly 15 acres of land. My high school had a total of 318 students, 7th-12th grade, and I graduated with 62 other people in my class. Our school was far less diverse than anyone could even imagine.

I graduated from a small private Catholic college, with about 400 other students, and made my way to York, PA to teach at an urban district, for my one and only major career choice, teaching mathematics.

I would like to say that I am not a racist, that I have never done or said anything that could be recognized as negative to my fellow man, but I am not perfect. I grew up around people who said, "Don't go into the city, you know what kind of people are there!" or "All the Mexicans have come in to work and it's becoming an unfit town!" or "All of those people are the same!"

When I started my job in York City, a few people asked if I was going to take a gun to school. I have read news articles that have called my school building "Wild Zoo"! I remember watching the beginning of the #BlackLivesMatter Movement, saying, "YEAH! Let's go for Equality!", but I did not do anything else.

Before I moved to York not once in my life did I question, or stand up for a person of color, or a minority who was being discriminated against. I just rolled with the comment. I was a white guy who did not understand… That has all changed! I am an ally for my students, parents and coworkers!

Wearing Black to Support our neighboring 

SOC's in a rough time, Dated 2016. 

I have challenged myself to become better in recent years and look for more views on education from outside sources, my favorites most days are on my Twitter Account. There I have been challenged to think more on the white washed version I have had on history education, as well as how to incorporate more successes from BIPOC in history, and not just the white washed version I have been given. 

I have incorporated the study of Fractals into my own Geometry Curriculum, and have shown students that places in Africa have been using Fractal Geometry for centuries in their creation of their villages. We also look at how recursive self-similarity is important in computer graphic imaginary, game design and coding. (See a list of YouTube Videos I use here: Fractal Playlist)

From my outlook, my students deserve a caring, respectful teacher willing to listen to their circumstances, understanding of their humanity and community! I will always be an advocate for my students, and make sure the relationships I form with them are one the basis of respect. I will help them find their learning path, and engage in more lessons that help my students discover their place in this world!

Constant Change

As I started my 13th year, I was naive and hopeful.  Yet again I was starting with a mostly new group of students, and adding another course to my repertoire, AP Computer Science A.  I also finished up my second master's, a MsEd in Instructional Technology Specialist, which added to my PA State Certification.  I have always wanted to teach students about computers, it was originally my reason to go into teaching, now I am living that dream.

2nd Master's Degree

IT Specialist Certification

Having added the AP CSP course in the 2018-2019 school year, helped our school achieve the 10th Annual AP District Honor Roll, which also shocked our surrounding community.  (See the Article here: Surprising Results for York County AP Honor Roll)  But I did not want to just stop with computer science.  I grew up playing video games, and as an avid gamer, a lot of my graduate work incorporated gaming to learn, gamification and video games in the classroom.  Through this research and willingness to learn, I found help from some amazing places.

AP CSP Added last year to increase
our student AP experiences

My co-worker, Nicholas, and I decided it was time to do more, and we became Class Advisers for the incoming freshmen, the Bearcat Class of 2023.  We also are still co-advising the Video Game Club.  Over the summer we attended the CS For All PA Summitt, which helped us discover the great program, NASEF, which started the process to become a part of a sanctioned High School eSports League.   Though we have some hiccups in setting up our online games, there has been a lot of interest in the club and eSports team.  Check out the William Penn Cybercat's Facebook Page for more info on what the students are doing.

The new Cybercat Student Leaders.

My PIC, Nicholas Naugle and I
on Twin Day.

Some other projects I am excited about working on include partnerships in my community and abroad have brought on new opportunities. The biggest one involves helping build a former student's student-driven eSports and Video Game community, the BEAST Initiative Push.  Through this partnership, students will have more opportunities to build and be a voice in the eSports community in York. 

Cybercats playing on the Occulus!

I also have a good idea of what to do next with students who are not going to compete in the eSports competitions, and just want to game with friends at school.  Finding the organization VGC USA and it's founders right in South Central PA have opened up the possibility for more gaming learning, volunteer experiences, and career exploration for the Cybercats. 

Cybercats Gaming Together.

Finally, I would like to share where I have been finding more inspiration in gamification, and gaming to learn in everyday life from the Podcast, Professor Game.  I have ideas galore and studies to back-up my desire to game and play games in the classroom.  I am thinking to start by creating a new card game for my students to play when we learn about congruent triangles.

My Gaming Information Folder.

All of these great resources have just fallen into my lap and I wanted to make sure I shared them with others who are looking for similar information.  This blog started as a way for me to share mathematical experiences, but now is morphing into my entire educational experience including my push of educational boundaries to include video games.

ESL Blog #6 - #CSForAllPA

For the 2019-2020 school year, I am planning on teaching the AP Computer Science Principles and AP Computer Science-A courses.  The courses are not only a recommendation from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and the Department of Education, but also another step in the direction of equity for students in our diverse population.  With computer science coming into its second year at William Penn SHS, I am committed to making sure all students are represented from all backgrounds.  That being said, I also have to be very strategic in how I am making these curriculum's available to students in our district.

CS Programs for EL Students

At the University of Texas in El Paso, Tech-E classes, seminars, and summer programs have been created to increase migrant student exploration in computer science.  The article I found in my Google Alerts talked about the start of this program in 2015, where it was just a small summer week-long camp, and that it has grown to full-semester courses offered yearly to undergraduates at UTEP.  The program is very strategic in offering experiences to students who are in transient worker families and exposes them to computer science and engineering.  This program is something that I think could be modeled at the high school level, and be used to get students interested in CS at the elementary and middle school levels.

CS Tools that could be used to inspire the next generation.
Raspberry Pi, Micro Bits & Video Games!

A pair of professors at Northwestern are also trying to make computer science more inclusive.  Sara Hood and Ian Horswill are looking to expand computer science offered to EL students, women and African Americans.  They are working to make sure all student have a safe space to practice computer science and realize that failure is just a stepping stone when creating computer programming.  The two are also making sure that students in the CS111 introductory course are coding for a purpose, to make something personal and worthwhile.  Giving students personal connections to a course make it more meaningful, and something that I can do with my CS students and the projects they are going to be creating.

The Push for CS in PA

Some very alarming statistics came out of Pennsylvania in the 2017-2018 data for students.  Out of 4,010 students that took the AP CS exams, only 309 were from minorities including EL Students.  Many students do not take the opportunity to try CS and luckily Governor Tom Wolf has already spent $40 Million on computer science grants for students and apprenticeships.  All of these initiatives are starting to be pushed in PA for the 2019-2020 school year, and I feel so glad to be a part of the Computer Science For All drive.  I am more proud that I began the program at our school a year before the state push.  Now I need to challenge more of our EL students to try Computer Science.

PA CS Statistics from the #CSForAllPA Summit