My Introduction to Programming

16th September 2022

Since I'd joined my school in first grade, there was this one teacher that everyone always mentioned as a scary figure that you never want to be on the radar of. Imagine Severus Snape from the Harry Potter series. That was the impression you got of him from what you heard. He only taught older classes, but he was that one teacher everyone knew nonetheless. Naturally, I passed through my classes hoping never to come to his attention.

Until 7th grade. We found out he'll be teaching us Computer.

The first day of his class, it was perhaps the most silent the classroom ever was. He placed his books on the table, looked at each one of us, and asked us to put our books away.

I don't remember exactly what the puzzle was, but he wrote something on the board and asked us to figure out what the answer to this is. Now just to let you know, 7th grade back then was the year when you started Computer in my school. So we weren't used to the kind of puzzles he was presenting. But I was deeply intrigued. I tried piecing it together in my head but realized I needed to lay out my thoughts to make sense of this particular one. So I sneaked a pencil out of my bag and began scribbling on my desk, hoping not to be seen.

"YOU! Stand!"

Every head in the class turned to me. Well, I've essentially vandalized the school desk. The first class of his and I've already screwed up.

So I thought.

"See what he did?", he asked the class while I stood at my place, all eyes on me. "When he was presented with a problem, he didn't just sit there. He took out his pencil and began scribbling. He got into problem-solving. That's the mindset I need from all of you. I wasn't expecting answers from you, just the drive to find one. That's what it's all about in the field of Computer."

As you can guess, I wore a shy but proud smile on my face. Over the next year, the teacher introduced us to QBasic, motivating me along the way to further myself too. Over that year, he turned from being a teacher I dreaded coming across, to the second most influential teacher of my life.

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I met that teacher again two months ago. We talked for a while, him asking what I'm up to now. Upon finding that I continued in the Computer field, he exclaimed, "ah! my field!" I told him it was because of his motivation in 7th grade that I decided to make this my life. He laughed at that, thinking I was being sarcastic, and even beckoned over a friend to tell her of the laugh I just gave him. It felt slightly awkward to clarify that I actually meant it, so I went along with it, even joking that had I stayed in the school longer, I'd have perhaps grown more driven by more of his motivation.

I just hope he knows that I truly did mean it. I think he did, at least a bit.