We are all passionate about something. The obvious one for me is web development. Any development really. Okay technology in general. As a developer, I enjoy coding sites and applications that push the boundaries of technology. It’s the future and we are all part of it. When I was given the opportunity to teach others these technologies. Teach the things that should be taught, and the opportunity to help craft a curriculum that will produce better prepared web professionals upon graduation, I jumped on it.
Of course I had to understand that it’s a slow process. It takes time to change. I helped craft courses like utilizing front-end frameworks, version control, actually publishing a web site, (you would be amazed at how many graduates do not know how to do that), and some advanced HTML and CSS3 stuff. Sounds great doesn’t it? In two years I haven’t taught any of them. I’m not even sure they have been offered. You know what I have taught. Flash. Three times to be exact. Guess how many times I have used Flash outside of that course. If you guessed zero, you win. You know why? Because it’s slowly becoming obsolete. Now I have to ask myself, how many times am I going to teach a dead technology that I despise in the hopes that I get to teach something more progressive? When do I say I have had enough of teaching this. Maybe colleges refuse to change and I can help teach through other channels. There is a new not so secret developer community starting up, eventually. Maybe that is the medium to help the industry keep moving forward. I think I see why most good developers do not teach.