Earlier today, I was informed that Stan Teitel, former principal of Stuyvesant high school had passed away at age 77. Stan started his career as a teacher in 1971 joining Stuy in the Chem/Physics department in 1983 - my senior year, though our paths never crossed. He became the Chem/Phys AP in 1997 and then Principal in September 2000, right before 9/11. He retired in August 2012 after the DOE, in my opinion did him dirty but we'll get to that in a bit.

So, one of the things I've been doing since retirement is working for and with my alumni community. We've held focussed events like an AI panel and a blockchain talk and have had meetups in New York and beyond - specifically Boston and San Francisco. Last Thursday we focussed on entrepreneurship. The idea wasn't mine. Stuy grad, Jae Zhou, a lawyer at Morrison Forester (MOFO) approached me with the idea about a year ago.

I wanted to follow up on my earlier post on why teaching CS still matters. In that post, I cited a couple of former students. Not only former students but particularly high achieving ones. One friend commented on that - the idea that my thesis may makes sense for those high achievers but not everyone. I maintain that CS, if taught right is still important for all students. It's about thinking and problem solving and that exploring programming can help build those thinking and problem solving skills.