I Miss Teaching

It’s been a very long time since I’ve formally taught in a classroom, almost 13 years, and I miss it. Since then I’ve given plenty of conference talks, Meetup presentations and other more informal teaching, but it’s not the same as being in a classroom. There’s something to be said about helping folks move forward in their lives, whether it’s a classroom, where I taught computer science, or an airplane cockpit, where I taught folks how to fly. For all the experiences I’ve had before or since, it is the teaching that was the most rewarding. People often ask me why I quit flying for a living. The truth is that the fun part of flying was the teaching. The rest was honestly incredibly boring. Sure, I loved the travel, but that gets old after a while. Considering my first day as a professional pilot, as a flight instructor for SIU, was on September 11, 2001, I can’t say being around an airport was ever a fun part of the job. And let’s face it, no one really enjoys dealing with air travel…