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From: mfeldman@seas.gwu.edu (Michael Feldman)
Subject: Re: Looking for a good Ada 95 book
Date: 1996/12/02
Message-ID: <57v84s$1vf@felix.seas.gwu.edu>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 201920194
references: <3290C33B.1772@cse.eng.lmu.edu> <57cofr$mgf@felix.seas.gwu.edu>
 <dewar.848961096@merv> <57tlca$5to$1@goanna.cs.rmit.edu.au>
organization: George Washington University
newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Date: 1996-12-02T00:00:00+00:00
List-Id: <comp.lang.ada>


In article <57tlca$5to$1@goanna.cs.rmit.edu.au>,
Richard A. O'Keefe <ok@goanna.cs.rmit.edu.au> wrote:
>Mike Feldman wrote
>[that he _chooses_ to teach CS1 and CS2]
>Robert Dewar wrote
>[that he put CS1 and CS2 at the top of his preferences]

>I have never put CS1 at the top of _my_ preferences for one very
>simple reason:  I am terrified of the responsibility.  

I agree with you. But the older I get, the more I realize "it's a
rotten job, but somebody's got to do it, so better they try to do it well."

[snip]

>By the time the students are in _my_ hands, they _ought_ to be mature
>enough to take responsibility for their own education, using me as a
>resource.  It doesn't actually _work_ that way, because resources have
>not been applied appropriately at lower more important levels.

Hmmm - I'm not sure if I should be comforted by the fact that it's not
just in the US that we have these problems.:-)

>Last Saturday I heard that most (school) science teachers "wish they
>were doing something else", which has me as a new parent _horrified_.

Yep. One of my more interesting and creative doctoral students was a 
burned-out high-school math teacher who gave up and joined the military.
(The military had the good sense to send this individual back to GW
for a Ph.D...:-))

>I suppose it won't matter much; the price of tertiary undergraduate
>science education is about to double, and physics departments around
>the country are downsizing and/or merging with engineering. I dunno
>who bought this government, but it's sure not the government _I_ paid for.

This sounds _awfully_ familiar.

Are you talking about the Australian government, or the American one?
Maybe your PM and our President had some interesting discussions last
week.:-)

>Any student who gets Feldman or Dewar in CS1 is fortunate indeed.

Wow! I sure hope you're right. I teach CS1 enthusiastically; I hope I do
it _well_. 'Course I'm ruining my students' minds with those *&^%%$#
uppercase reserved words!:-)

Mike Feldman