This week we finally resumed our Home-school Cooperative; and there was much rejoicing.

During the school year (although the semesters seem to get shorter and shorter) we join with about 150 other home-schooled kids for a day of elective classes. The kids get a chance to learn some things their parents don’t know, and to build some good friendships, while the parents (mostly moms) enjoy considerable fellowship and camaraderie as well. Kathy particularly appreciates the chance to swing by the espresso stand, “since we’re on the way.”

And of course, everyone likes recess.

Our five kids look forward to Co-op with great excitement, and mourn the end of each semester deeply. Personally, I think they cherish an educational experience they can come home and tell stories about, something their mom and siblings don’t already know. Besides, who wouldn’t want to star in a Drama production, or explore a course mysteriously named, ‘For Boys Only’?

Personally, I’d take the class just for the mustache.

This year, I agreed to teach a Programming class, arranging permission with my boss to take some time off during the day. “How hard can it be?” I blithely asked Kathy. “I’ve been programming for more than 15 years, I oughta be able to teach this stuff in my sleep!” Kathy was strangely silent about how hard, exactly, it could be, having taught a few co-op classes herself. In any case, I have long wanted an opportunity to teach my kids a little about what I do … it doesn’t seem right to me, as a programmer, that none of my children know an ‘if’ from an ‘else’.

Those summer months passed like one of those vending-machine packages of Oreos (only six cookies), and I found myself less than a week away from the first day of class without a syllabus, course outline, or any substantive idea of what I’d be teaching. To make matters worse, I found that I was competing with ‘Backyard Ballistics’ during the same hour! I alternated between desperately hoping students would choose my class and, er, hoping that they wouldn’t sign up and I could get credit for having offered without actually having to teach.

One very popular class last year was Grandma Honey’s offering for Kindergarten through 3rd grades.

Twelve kids showed up for class, the youngest 10, the oldest 17. I had managed to throw together a syllabus and a course outline the night before, and so I launched into my first-day lecture. About 10 minutes into the period, Kathy came in and sat down at one of the empty tables … and brought with her a strong sense of being scrutinized and evaluated. I almost couldn’t continue, unable to articulate any coherent thought, as every idea took flight from my skull, except this one:

“Arrggh! Kathy’s listening to me, and she’s going to shake her head pityingly, saying, ‘Do you really think these kids are interested in any of that stuff?’”

We discovered early in our marriage that discussion of my work, especially anything to do with relational databases, is a sure-fire cure for insomnia. “Tell me about your work,” Kathy asks sleepily as she snuggles in. While I prattle on about the details of my job, she sighs contentedly and drifts off into sweet slumber, often right in the middle of a good anecdote about PL/SQL errors or a tale of associative arrays! Sometimes I go ahead and finish the story, finding myself, even as the story-teller, deeply engrossed in the suspenseful narrative.

The kids seemed attentive, though, and I made it through the first class period without being lynched. I am using (at least at first) a variant of the Logo language that involves giving commands to cute little turtles as they roam around on a canvas, drawing designs.

I don’t have much experience with a lecture-style presentation — nearly all of the teaching I do at work or at church is inductive, requiring a high degree of discussion and participation from those in attendance. I think next week I’ll try to have more questions or some other way to encourage participation — I find that I can’t keep spouting out ideas, but rather that I need time to think of what I’ll say next.

Rachel really wishes these friends were in co-op this year.

When we got home, my oldest son (who was press-ganged into the class, along with two of his siblings) immediately started working on the homework assignment I gave, and seems to be having a lot of fun with it. I asked him to come down and do the dishes last night, but he craftily played on my soft geek heart, pleading, “Dad, my turtles, they need me!”

What’s a programmer Dad to do? “Just ten minutes,” I growled. It’s nice to be needed, even by turtles.

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