twenty-Six
Twenty Six…
i like to play with numbers. i’m no mathematician and i’m not that great with numbers but i love the combinations they sometimes make. i once had a telephone number 5+1=6, 4+3=7, 5x9=45. And i loved to show people how easy it was to remember my number although i never much liked talking on the phone.
Well regardless of the combinations i have derived over the years, the number 26 recently popped into my head. i have been 26 for almost a year now (quickly pushing 27) but it wasn’t my age that got me thinking. In fact when people ask my age, i sometimes forget. it’s just not something i seem to remember. my recent fixation on the number 26 started when i looked at what date i would eventually complete my doctorate. The year, i can only hope, will be 2010. 2010 is an amazing number in its own right, but i am focused solely on the number 26. In 2010, i will have spent 26 years in education, not as an educator, but as a student.
26 years is a long time to invest on education. And now that i look back, i am convinced that it is impossible to spend too much time in the classroom. i make no assertion that knowledge is confined to the classroom, but it is the discipline the classroom setting demands that i value most. With every teacher there are different standards to meet in addition to a new learning curve. The classroom forces the individual to adapt to these challenges. Some students are naturally gifted and perform well in the classroom regardless of the subject and regardless of the instructor. i am one who is often challenged by both the instructor and the subject. Sometimes i find learning to be difficult and i find myself having to quickly adapt in the short timeframe. In the end, whether i was successful in achieving my own goals or missed my mark, i feel the experience enough is victory and this reward far outweighs the stress.
And this is the primary reason i do not regret what will be 26 years of education come 2010.
In fact, to repay my gratitude, i hope to spend the next 26 years (maybe x 2) giving back to the academic community through teaching, research and service in the field of information/computer science and the many disciplines it traverses. i hope to use the classroom setting to challenge a new generation of knowledge seekers, even those who do not realize that 26 years may be in their future.
a blog entry by Brian Thoms
i like to play with numbers. i’m no mathematician and i’m not that great with numbers but i love the combinations they sometimes make. i once had a telephone number 5+1=6, 4+3=7, 5x9=45. And i loved to show people how easy it was to remember my number although i never much liked talking on the phone.
Well regardless of the combinations i have derived over the years, the number 26 recently popped into my head. i have been 26 for almost a year now (quickly pushing 27) but it wasn’t my age that got me thinking. In fact when people ask my age, i sometimes forget. it’s just not something i seem to remember. my recent fixation on the number 26 started when i looked at what date i would eventually complete my doctorate. The year, i can only hope, will be 2010. 2010 is an amazing number in its own right, but i am focused solely on the number 26. In 2010, i will have spent 26 years in education, not as an educator, but as a student.
26 years is a long time to invest on education. And now that i look back, i am convinced that it is impossible to spend too much time in the classroom. i make no assertion that knowledge is confined to the classroom, but it is the discipline the classroom setting demands that i value most. With every teacher there are different standards to meet in addition to a new learning curve. The classroom forces the individual to adapt to these challenges. Some students are naturally gifted and perform well in the classroom regardless of the subject and regardless of the instructor. i am one who is often challenged by both the instructor and the subject. Sometimes i find learning to be difficult and i find myself having to quickly adapt in the short timeframe. In the end, whether i was successful in achieving my own goals or missed my mark, i feel the experience enough is victory and this reward far outweighs the stress.
And this is the primary reason i do not regret what will be 26 years of education come 2010.
In fact, to repay my gratitude, i hope to spend the next 26 years (maybe x 2) giving back to the academic community through teaching, research and service in the field of information/computer science and the many disciplines it traverses. i hope to use the classroom setting to challenge a new generation of knowledge seekers, even those who do not realize that 26 years may be in their future.
a blog entry by Brian Thoms
posted by Brain at 8:36 PM
3 Comments:
Hey dude, twenty six?
2+6= 8
8*26= 208
208-(7.5 * 26)= 13
and
13*2= 26
I just proved, mathamaticaly, that every thing comes back to the number 26. I think you stumbled on something here. I'll contact my friends over at TIM (Tennesse Institute of Mathmatics) and bring this to thier attention. Good job.
This comment has been removed by the author.
Hi Prof. Thoms... I was in a class of yours around 2008 at SDSU and ran across this blog. It was an Info and Tech course for Business and Economics students, I was one of the only Econ. students in that class.
I remember how huge that class was and how bad I felt for you as the teacher, wondering how you were able to run it (without losing your cool) and thinking it would be absolutely impossible for any of my other professors to be able to handle those students (Business students at SDSU hold the mentality of "C's get Degrees"). It was to the point that it was so large, filled with a bunch of bus. major SDSU students (in a tech course), that it was unmanageable to focus for me.
In your post you left out the key factor of struggle for focus in a student's life, which was made apparent in that massive class of yours. When there are too many people and distractions it's extremely hard to focus, especially if no one else seems to care about the topic, and you feel like your the only one who actually cares. It's almost following along the same lines as 'peer pressure,' that you have to rise above but it was difficult not to get sucked into side conversations and lackadaisical behavior.
I have no clue how I sat through those classes, but I REALLY don't know how you taught through them! Seeing you be able to stand up there and get through that horrific environment, made me know that I, too, could do it. So thank you for the inspiration and strength! We survived the class together... and you didn't even know!
After reading this, I see how much excitement you had to go into academia and to give back. That is very honorable. When I was fresh out of school, I had a similar mentality by wanting to help less developed countries with me Economics degree (and give back to society). Now, I have very different ideas than I had back then, mostly due to traveling, but really just time, understanding, and life lessons. Was teaching all it was cracked up to be? When you wrote this blog, you definitely knew the challenges that a student faced through your 26 years of education, now I'm wondering what you have learned about the main challenges a professor faces.
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