By Tess Ramsey, CSTA Equity Fellow 2024–25
For as long as I’ve taught computer science, I’ve been called upon by my colleagues to fix their projectors, unjam the copier, find the right cable or adapter, and connect their devices to wifi. While we aren’t omniscient technology wizards, CS teachers possess the vocabulary and debugging strategies to solve these problems efficiently. CS teachers naturally are also asked to provide extracurricular opportunities to students aligned with their discipline, like coding and robotics clubs.
When we have the time, it feels great to help and share our skills with our community, but there is a hidden consequence of this dynamic. CS teachers can become narrowly typecast as technologists and nothing more. This contributes to students seeing their CS teachers and the subject as insular and uninviting. They may write it off as irrelevant, unglamorous, tedious, and at odds with the interests and passions they’ve already developed. This leads to lower engagement and wasting valuable time each class justifying the work. This problem is not unique to CS, but at a time when AI is conditioning students to think computing power can and should be wielded effortlessly, like CS is a problem that has already been solved, it can feel like fighting an uphill battle.
Finding New Roles
One possible remedy to this typecasting is to take on other roles and offer extracurriculars way outside of CS. For example, I teach a knitting elective and advise a fiber arts lunch club. This attracted a very different set of students than the computing electives I’ve offered in the past, who crave a tactile experience and hold different priorities. After bonding with them over our shared curiosity and excitement about craft and fiber, I was able to carry that flame into my CS class through e-textiles and conductive sewing.
Other solutions include advising student affinity groups and joining teacher affinity groups; chaperoning field trips for other teachers and authentically connecting observations with work the students have done; and working with colleagues to build cross-curricular lessons to expand the reach of computer science.
Playing Our Parts
Making computing approachable and familiar demands that we develop lessons that leverage analog skills and everyday materials like paper, pencils, glue, and scissors. This is not only critical for introducing abstract computing and logic concepts, but is useful for projects of any size and sophistication for any age group.
Students are sometimes surprised when asked to close the laptop in a CS class, but seem to build a mental model for a concept quicker when there is a physical model in front of them. Interrupting their expectations for what a CS class looks like averts their assumptions about CS at large.
We may begin class with a clear lesson plan and objectives, but it’s helpful for us to remember to disrupt our own expectations, and admit when a lesson is not working. Give yourself the freedom to go off script and improvise in the moment. As current Equity Fellow, Jade Solomon, recently said, “the best lessons aren’t planned.”
Taking the Stage
As a result of this work, you may find that you are being asked to help your community with more diverse problems. Recently, I was asked to sew a Martha Graham costume for our dance teacher, so that she can perform Lamentation for her students. I designed and printed physical planners for students who struggle with executive functioning and can’t reliably use digital organizers, like Google Calendar. I knitted a pair of mittens for a colleague to keep them warm on their morning commute. On the flip side, other members of my community have become more empowered and motivated to solve tech problems for each other.
It’s not enough to simply bring down the barriers to CS, we should break down barriers beyond our own classes, intentionally place ourselves where students might not expect us, and we should invite our colleagues to do the same. Together, we can build a culture of learning without borders, where students can get invested in all subjects in their own ways.
About the Author
Tess Ramsey (they/them) is a new media artist, technologist, and educator based in New York City. They run a makerspace at The Speyer Legacy School and teach Creative and Computational Thinking classes to students in grades 5-8. In addition to teaching technical skills of design, engineering and computer science, they help students develop their ‘maker mindset’ by celebrating creative agency, collaboration, problem solving, and resiliency. Before becoming a teacher, they received their BFA in Sculpture from the Tyler School of Art, where they focused on promoting gender equality through performance art, interactive installations, and community workshops. In their free time, they love to knit and search for rare vintage virtual pets to add to their ever growing collection.