Your Career, Your Future! May 2015 SBMS Presentation
My history began when my children were in elementary school. Today they are a math teacher, a music teacher, and a magazine editor. My grandchildren are in Kindergarten, 6th grade, 10th grade and 12th grade. My brother was in construction and wrote software to run his business.  No computer store in town, he started one.  That is where my father’s first computer came to his house and mine.  My other brother was a programmer.  Stories need to be told. Classroom teachers are heroes.  Please write a thank you note to a teacher from your past, as storytelling is your superpower.

What inspires kids now?

A little history – note the dates when created:

 

LEARNING FROM HISTORY IS THE BEST WAY TO LEARN …

Jonathan Blaze Harker

For a small amount of perspective at this moment, imagine you were born in 1900. When you are 14, World War I starts, and ends on your 18th birthday with 22 million people killed. Later in the year, a Spanish Flu epidemic hits the planet and runs until you are 20. Fifty million people die from it in those two years. Yes, 50 million.
When you’re 29, the Great Depression begins. Unemployment hits 25%, global GDP drops 27%. That runs until you are 33. The country nearly collapses along with the world economy. When you turn 39, World War II starts. You aren’t even over the hill yet.
When you’re 41, the United States is fully pulled into WWII. Between your 39th and 45th birthday, 75 million people perish in the war and the Holocaust kills six million. At 52, the Korean War starts and five million perish.
At 64 the Vietnam War begins, and it doesn’t end for many years. Four million people die in that conflict. Approaching your 62nd birthday you have the Cuban Missile Crisis, a tipping point in the Cold War. Life on our planet, as we know it, could well have ended. Great leaders prevented that from happening.
As you turn 75, the Vietnam War finally ends. Think of everyone on the planet born in 1900. How do you survive all of that? A kid in 1985 didn’t think their 85 year old grandparent understood how hard school was. Yet those grandparents (and now great grandparents) survived through everything listed above.
Perspective is an amazing art. Let’s try and keep things in perspective. Let’s be smart, help each other out, and we will get through this. In the history of the world, there has never been a storm that lasted. This too, shall pass.

• My history:
  Computer Science Teachers Association