The subtitle of this post is: and why my students are going to hate me tomorrow. When my good friend Gerry Seidman talks to my classes, he frequently says “never use a data structure or algorithm you couldn’t build yourself.” This doesn’t mean that you have to write everything from scratch, just that you should have some knowledge as to what’s going on under the hood. I find that all too often young programmers just rely on APIs and libraries and really don’t know how their computers and programs are working.

Week 5. Last week, I lamented over the difficulties with only meeting once a week. We went over a log of new material last week and I was happy when today rolled around and the hackers would be able to start putting things together. When writing a web app, you’ve got to know about all sorts of things - for us it’s HTML, CSS, Python, and the microframework, flask. That’s quite a bit, particularly when working with a group with a wide range of experience coming in.

We just finished week 4 of CSTUY’s Hacking Sessions. I’m really happy with how our hackers are doing - they’re a great bunch and even if they don’t realize it yet, are making great progress. Meanwhile, as an instructor and program designer I’m noticing the differences between a once a week program and having a class every day (note - I’m not the sole designer or instructor. I have a great team - JonAlf, Sam, and Topher are three of the best teachers I’ve had the privilege of working with - this post, however, is based on my observations).

Today was Halloween. This year we were the crew of the Enterprise. The original series, that is. Overall, the school had a much more subdued spirit than past years but it was fun. Certainly more fun for me than the past couple of years. For those of you that don't know - I have a long history of going all out for Halloween. Starting in October 1994 as Groo the Wanderer: To Bob Ross: To many more.

The other week I was invited by Brandon Diamond and Ilana Sufrin to participate in HuffPost Labs podcast - Floating Points. I've known Brandon for a while and he's a really awesome guy. He's a techie for sure but he also understands the importance of community building. Brandon and Ilana (also awesome but I haven't known her as long) are at HuffPost labs and also are working on important initiatives like Hacker Union.

Saturday was the second day of CSTUY’s Hacking Sessions. We started out wit a minor panic - none of the laptops could connect to the wireless!!! After a brief scramble, we finally gave up and gave our host a call (sorry Davin) and the problem was swiftly addressed. From there it was off to the races. Last week we spent most of the session with mixers and setting up the laptops.

Last week in my AP classes, we were working on inheritance. So, what to do? Last time around I had my classes work on a “speed dating” program - StuyDater. Back then JonAlf had his classes work on Stuyablo, that classic dungeon crawl. I still plan on reworking the StuyDater project, but first I decided to do my take on Stuyablo. Of course, we’ve improved on it. This time it’s Stuyablo II.

Earlier I wrote about the new teacher evaluation system and why a teacher such as myself might now be considered ineffective and two ineffectives in a row can cost you your job. Well, the New York City and New York State Departments of Education are the departments that just keep on giving. Here’s the latest. This coming Wednesday, I won’t be teaching during my usual 8:00 to 10:15 block of three AP classes.

Each month, The Stuyvesant school paper - the Spectator invites a teacher to write a piece on, well, basically, whatever they want to. I did it this past month. Here’s a reposting of the piece. The original can be found on the Spectator site. Enjoy “I’ve got 10 periods of class and no lunch.” “I’ve got four APs.” “Can I also take Great Books, Multivariate, Physics C, and Software Development?” The goal of a Stuyvesant student: take as many electives and AP classes as possible.

Yesterday was my 46th birthday. How did I spend it? Well, 20 “Hackers” from 9 schools, 4 student TAs and a few of us teachers gathered at SumAll to kick off CSTUY’s first weekly program - Hacking Sessions (sometimes called Hackers Sessions). It was the first week so it was mostly mixers, setting up machines (installing Linux on 24 laptops takes time) and going over how we’ll be communicating but I’m really excited about the weeks to come.