The back and forth of our Paso Doble now took on a growing set of engaging maneuvers. Everyday a new dimension. From clumsy toe stepping to smooth ice dancing was again on course. Not only more variations but greater speed and accomplishment.
A new dimension entered the scene.
Now, I was not only making things for others to enjoy, I was actually, beginning to shape them, so they could enjoy themselves, as well. Much more difficult than manufacturing, but, so much more rewarding. Rewarding, as I could actually see others, learning their dance right in front of my eyes, and have the satisfaction of knowing I was helping it happen. Looking back on this part of our dance, my belief that someone was watching over me, was so strongly reinforced. Here’s why I believe that:
I began taking teacher training courses at the University of Buffalo. I needed them as a part of the requirements for teaching in the City of Buffalo. I had taken their exam, placed first, and was on their hiring list for the Fall of 1967. At the beginning of this period. While taking those classes, and before accepting the Business Teaching position at Colton, I substitute taught for a newly formed Vocational School Computer class at the Erie County BOCES No. 1.
This was the Fall of 1966, and computer training was a brand-new ball game in public schools. Teaching experience in computers was at ground zero, and the recently enacted Vocational Education Act was providing huge sums of money to Vocational schools to get that technology off the ground and into the public education scene.
Where my good fortune came in was that nobody, but nobody in the realm of public school business teachers, knew anything about computers. The field was as wide open as it could ever be for the likes of me as a beginning teacher. In fact, I had a tremendous advantage over public school business teachers. I had been, in my various business experiences, exposed, with what passed as computers in those days.
While I was substituting for a short absence of the computer program teacher at BOCES, I made the acquaintance of the director of the newly activated computer center at the University of Buffalo. Two and two together, and I was on my way to becoming a computer person.
The director took me under his wing, and allowed me to learn from him at his center on an IBM 360 mainframe computer. I learned all about computer programming and operation. It was a tough go, and I struggled for a long time before getting the hang of it. Programming in the algebraic language of Fortran was not easy for me. But, I did it, and soon it became a part of my Business Teacher Act. So much a part that I had learned of a brand new computer teaching opportunity to open in the Fall of 1967 at another BOCES.
After, I starting teaching at Colton, I applied for that job. I was accepted on a preliminary basis for a starting position that upcoming Fall. A whole new burgeoning field and me with a tremendous head start. I was almost the only game in town at that time.
Within a few months of my starting date, that BOCES decided to withdraw that opening, for what reason I know not. But, the person that had sponsored me felt obligated enough to recommend me to the Orleans-Niagara BOCES in Medina, where there was an opening. To brief it up, I was hired, believe it or not, as almost twice the rate I would have received from the City of Buffalo, and, obviously even more than Colton could afford.
I loved Colton, but I had to support a growing family, and both the incentives of a good salary and a unique set of challenges left me no choice, but to embark on an exciting new adventure. An adventure in bringing up to date employment opportunities to high school students, who were not college bound. What better opportunity than to become involved with teaching computers way back in those early days.
An interesting note about all that was that more than one former student, after being out in the computer field for a while, would come back to see me and ask me why was I still teaching when there was so much more money to be made in the non-teaching world. My reply always was, because I love what I’m doing, and I’m OK with what they pay me.
The experience of being a computer teacher in those days, was that we began our students on the old IBM electro-mechanical accounting machines, and the accompanying punch card processing machines. Once they began to get the hang of the essence of the subject matter – connecting and reporting, they could move on to the more sophisticated 360’s.
But, like in ice dancing, you must be able to make the connections first, then you can deliver your performance. In the IBM electro-mechanical accounting machine, the essential performance process was done by wiring a set of connections that would do what needed to be done. Each maneuver had a different set of wiring instructions. So much like the connected maneuvers in ice dancing. Each environment is a metaphor for the other.
Our dance was getting better…