Facilities and Demographics Disclaimer

OK, maybe the title is a bit much, but I just wanted to let anyone reading this blog (which, so far has a readership of zero as far as I can tell) a little about the school I teach at, and why the things I'm spouting off about will work in just about any school.

First, about facilities. I've been to visit other schools with brand new lab facilities, or remodeled 2,000 square foot auto shops. While those types of facilities made me jealous, I had to think as to the reason I was there. I was the one telling those teachers how things should be done. They had the great facilities, but I was the one that was making engineering work in my school.

My school was built in 1926. I have a classroom and a half, and only because someone in the past knocked down the wall between my room and the office next door. I have four tables and 28 chairs, and some lab benches with about 15 computers on them. No Internet. But it works, and if it works here, it'll work almost anywhere.

A quick note about demographics: Jacksonville is a large, urban school district, the 13th largest in the country (or thereabouts.) Our students are 63% black, and the rest a mix of white, Asian, and Hispanic. 43% of our students get free lunch. And Florida, in the land of paradise, is 50th in public school spending out of our 50 states. And we make it work.

So again, I'm just trying to quash any excuses about why this or that won't work. We need to get engineering concepts integrated into our schools from the bottom up. Whatever it takes.

(shoot, I'll probably use this as the intro to the book!)

TTFN

The Purpose of TeachTron in Engineering Education

So...What is TeachTron?

TeachTron is my humble attempt to let teachers anywhere learn from my triumphs and mistakes trying to teach Engineering to high school students. The benefit for all of my readers will be that I'll be posting everything that I've done so far, as wel as a report on how well it worked and what things I'll need to change for next time. I will also be trying out some things for the first time, and reporting on them real-time as my students are working on them. I'm also gearing up to write a book, so I'm throwing ideas around here to see how people react to them and what the interest level might be.

Why am I doing this? As an engineer, I need to share the things I have learned. People often ask me "If you are an Engineer, why don't you do engineering and work for a company? You'd make more money!" My response to this is that the United States is lagging behind the rest of the world when it comes to science, engineering, and technology. We need more engineers than we produce every year. If I practice engineering, I am just one engineer. However, if I teach, I have the potential to motivate hundreds, if not thousands of students to enter into careers in math, science, and especially engineering.

Thanks for reading.

TTFN (Teaching Technology For Now)