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Bulletin of Applied Computing and Information Technology |
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What Am I Doing Here?I've been asked to answer that question many times, and when the editor of BACIT gave me a chance to articulate an answer, I thought I should take that opportunity. Of course the answer will be nothing profound, but if it helps people get acquainted and stimulates a bit of thinking, perhaps it is worth it. About 10 years ago I began thinking about the winding down of my teaching career. I thought about the form my retirement would take. I was teaching Computer Science at a four-year undergraduate college in the United States. [There are about 830 such schools in the US, they provide an undergraduate alternative to the universities.] I had already done a couple of stints in international education. I spent one year at the University of Malawi in Malawi, Africa on a Fulbright lectureship. Then I taught for one semester during a sabbatical leave at Bishop Heber College in Tiruchirapalli, India. Both my wife and I liked the challenge of living abroad, and experiencing the variety of culture, landscape, and food in other countries. So my thinking became focused on retiring early and taking two-year appointments wherever I could find them. Luckily, several factors worked together to make this possible. First, the institution where I worked had an early retirement policy. I could retire at age 60, and receive partial compensation for the remaining years until I was of age 65. That sounded good to me! After all, I knew the compensation from appointments abroad would not cover the full costs of travel and setting up a new home. The second factor was that one of my students was due to receive his PhD at exactly the same time I would retire. He had been a TA of mine, and we had worked and written a paper together. I encouraged him to apply for the position I would vacate. He did, and has done a terrific job, more than replacing me in that position. Finally, we have a very supportive family of four children and seven grandchildren who think it's great that the "old folks" of our family are off doing crazy things during their retirement. My first position after retiring was at Monash University in Malaysia. I wrote a contact at Monash in Melbourne, and received a reply, "How about Malaysia?" The campus was rather new, and they needed experienced teachers. We looked into it, and eagerly accepted. The time in Malaysia was wonderful, and before we knew it, the two years were up and we were back home. I taught half-time at my home institution for one semester while I sought another post. I was in communication with schools in Uganda and Borneo and I was quite sure something would work out with one of those schools. About the time of contract negotiations, the communication stopped! I expressed my frustration to a friend who then told me about one of his friends in Auckland who might have the kind of position I was seeking. I wrote an email, and within two weeks I had a job at Auckland University of Technology. We arrived in February, 2003, one week prior to the beginning of classes! It was a challenge to find an apartment, a car, get the license, settle in, figure out something of how the educational system worked, and find our way around town, all before going to work. Thank goodness my wife could do much of that work. She has since taken a part-time job as an Educational Support Worker working with pre-school children who have special needs. Now that we're settled, we are having a great time, working hard, and enjoying the beautiful country of New Zealand. Of course New Zealand is hardly a "developing" country. But Auckland enjoys such a diverse cultural scene that we can enjoy many of the wonderful things of several cultures. We love all kinds of food, and we can surely get that here. Our friends are from many places in the world, and have been to many interesting places. We love the "Kiwi" spirit of independence, and a willingness to think and talk about all kinds of important issues. So, do I think this kind of retirement is for everyone? Of course not! But I do observe that some academics have a lot to offer in their later years, and would be appreciated greatly in a new environment. Also, it is a terrific way to see some of the world. People often call us "well-travelled". Not really. We don't travel. We just live in various places. How does one go about finding positions around the world? There are no agencies that I know of for general placements. Of course there are specialised agencies. But many of those want people who are almost volunteers. At least I can't afford to do that. I think the best way is to use friends who have contacts. Everybody knows someone who knows somebody in the country or place they might be interested in. Once the contact has been made, email and the web are easy sources of information. I've been lucky. But also diligent. And determined. Is it hard to be out of ones comfort zone? Of course, that depends on the person. Living away from home for extended periods of time does indeed give one a chance for some self-discovery. Also, we decided that we needed to be in personal contact with our family a couple of times a year. So that was "built into the budget". We still have our home in the US. We just get home, unlock the door, and go about our normal life at home, spending a lot of time with family and friends. People often ask me to compare the experiences we've had. What they really want to know is, "Are our students as good as the students in Wherever?" Of course it is difficult to generalise. I guess my immediate reaction is that all students are basically the same. They are bright enough, but also about 20 years old, and sufficiently lazy enough to find the easiest route out of doing any job. Aren't we all?! They are experiencing being away from the restrictions of home, and are having the growing pains that that entails. They are finding out rapidly how big the world is, and how they fit into it. They are entering a world of new relationships which mean a great deal to them. And above all, they like to have some fun. Most of these forces act against any academic achievement, and taken as a whole, it is a wonder that we get anywhere with students at this age! Yet they are bright, wonderful, eager, and fertile ground for new ideas and experiences. I still say that this kind of teaching is the best job anyone can have. Finally, I should say something about what I'm doing here. My academic interest has been in Computer Graphics, and Computer Education. There was not so much opportunity to do Computer Graphics at AUT, but I have been heavily involved with Computer Education, particularly the first programming course in a diploma program. We have changed the language of that course from Pascal to JavaScript. The course is called Programming Fundamentals. Since there are no textbooks which present JavaScript as a programming language (without going into a lot of web development), we have had to do a lot of our own course development. We now have a collection of lecture slides, lesson plans, weekly exercises, examples, a project, and a student assessment reporting system. We have a web site where students can obtain all these materials at any time from any place. We're having a lot of fun with JavaScript, and the conversion has been quite successful. Of course we've learned where we can improve for next year, but at least we're on the way. I invite anybody who might be interested in this kind of course to contact me. Talk is cheap! Bulletin of Applied Computing and Information Technology Vol 1, Issue 2 (December 2003). ISSN 1176-4120. Copyright © 2003, Gordon Stegink |
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Copyright © 2003 NACCQ. All rights reserved. |