Well I started my new job teaching at Tarrant County College. It inspired me to write a little bit about it. I’ve had a lot of fun.

On a side note. My wife is holding a jewelry give-away right now. All you have to do is write your favorite quote as a comment on her blog for a chance to win a piece of her jewelry. If you aren’t a woman, there is probably something that would be fun to give to a special someone!

I’ve been anticipating this job for some time. I was a bit disappointed when it started because they told me I was no longer teaching web design. This was said after I had spent weeks working on lessons plans and ideas to make it fun and interesting for children. After my first week I am less upset of course. It isn’t about the subject, it is about the kids, and the kids are hilarious.

Instead of web design, they put me in a class teaching strategy games. I wasn’t sure how learning to be better at games would help them in life, but I was certainly qualified to teach it. They didn’t give us ANY cool games to work with either. So we are mostly relying on flash games online. It was still fun though, we took certain games and dissected them to find the strategy behind them. It worked too, because in the beginning the kids weren’t really trying different styles. They would do the same things again and again — content and having fun. By the end they were all trying to do it better through different methods and that is where I found the real lesson behind the class.

Even with something as simplistic as video games, I am teaching them to actually sit down and think things through. Is that not the goal of anyone in education? In my opinion, teaching kids to think is the greatest of all lessons. It is something that they can take with them to help later in life. That is the beauty of teaching kids in groups. Each one of them thinks so much differently than the rest. So I have been pushing them to work together and think of ideas. Since they are younger (3rd-8th) they don’t yet have that inclination to solitude, which is great.

There are always little lessons that you can find in anything you do. Which only once again proves that it isn’t what you do as much as how you go about doing it. There is always a silver lining on my outlooks — something I have always been very grateful for.