Digital Footprints

Throughout my teaching career I often had to buy, create or procure supplies for my students in math or computer classes in disadvantages areas. There were even times when I had to create my own work books using the ditto machine to make copies one page at a time for a whole semester worth of problems. This was something that I did in city schools of Newark and in country settings like Tunbridge, Vermont. The latter was a school so old it had out houses for bathrooms and a pot bellied stove for classroom heat. One of the first things I did when I arrived to school each morning was stoke the fire and add some wood. But one of the situations I am most proud of being involved in happened when I was in charge of the computer lab at Randolph Mason College in Virginia.

My wife and I had moved to Richmond, Virginia into a two bedroom duplex whose glass door opened into a backyard play area with some playground equipment for young children and a basketball court in the middle of the grassy area. I often went out to the court to shoot baskets alone or sometimes with kids that showed up there. Usually there is fencing around a basketball court but not for this court. So even if you made the basket, you found yourself doing a lot of running to retrieve the basketball after your shot. Being a former college player used to a netted basket, I had to put up a net that I bought because I loved the swish sound the ball made when you made the shot and because the rim needed a net to catch the ball long enough for you to catch it before it rolled away. Even the kids began to show up more often to play once it felt like a “real” basketball court. The young man in the picture above was one of the kids that liked to challenge me to a game of Horse whenever he saw me out there. That was how I me his sisters and many other young kids who hung out in the playground.

As manager of the computer lab at the college, I was tasked with upgrading the 20 computers in the lab. I purchased new Macintosh computers to replace the old ones and was given some leeway with what to do with the old computers. I decided to take some of them home and refurbish them with games and educational software that kids could use to teach themselves how to use the keyboard on the computer. Since I had met many of the parents, who often used me as a sitter keeping my eye out for there kids whenever they had to make a quick run to the store or something, it was easy to approach them with my idea.

I offered to give a really good Macintosh computer to their child and give them a couple lessons on how to use it. At first parents were filled with disbelief, wondering what my angle was and how could I afford to do such a thing. They also had some reservation about letting me into their homes to spend time with their kids. But once I got the first one accepted, the word went out and I had several requests from local and some distant families. I only had seven computers and gave them out in order of requests and need or familiarity. In each case the families were extremely grateful for the computers and my instruction which gave these kids a head start on the new age of technology. I know that all those families benefited greatly by having computers in their homes in the early ’90’s and I am grateful to have had the opportunity to help many children and their families get a step ahead in education.