Introducing hands-on computing in secondary education

“If a teacher wants to engage their students with
extracurricular activities, or opportunities that do not casually
slot into the standardized curriculum, they are talking about
committing their own time to their students. In the world of open
source, this should be familiar… the donation of time to a cause
that matters to the individual. If that donation of time and effort
isn’t successful, it will still impact them negatively when it
comes time for professional evaluation—even if it was a
“donation.” If the students or parents complain about the teacher’s
efforts, no one will care if they went “above and beyond,” they
will only care that things may have gone wrong.

“For these reasons it is absolutely critical that if you are
going to offer to help a teacher with some educational activity
that you are fully committed to supporting them throughout the
exercise. This is not a patch that you fire off to a mailing list
and hope someone picks up. It is not a ticket you leave languishing
in a tracking system, wondering if someone might do something about
it. You must be 110% along side the teacher from start to finish.
And the reason for being there isn’t because it makes things better
for the teacher: you’re there because it means a better educational
experience for the students. Never, ever forget that.”

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