Assignment 1, Introduction

My name is Charles Lee, and I’m originally from Massapequa, Long Island, New York, where I finished High School, before going into the US Army to serve in Fort Hood, Texas, then on to Viet Nam for most of my two-year tour of duty in Saigon, Tai Ninh and Bien Hoa.

While in Viet Nam, I lived among the people, rather than simply remain a “military employee,” where I learned to speak and write Vietnamese, I ate their food, and I immersed myself in their culture. I figured that being halfway around the world, over 12,000 miles from home (for the first in my life), I was going to actually see this fascinating country that I was “visiting.” I was determined not stay encapsulated in that little “American bubble” where I was assigned. (That would be like visiting Europe, and eating at McDonalds !)

Officially, my “job” (MOS) was “Military Police” and our patrol “beat” was Highway 1A from Saigon to Tai Ninh (aka “Suicide Alley” from the movie, “Good Morning, Vietnam”) and “riding shotgun,” escorting convoys of supplies and troops to and from the “ports of entry,” such as Mekong Delta and Saigon Harbor.

While there, I took some “journeys” as far as I could hitch rides in my spare time, and found myself in far corners of the country, making sure I could get back in time for my official tours “on the job.”

Since then, I have worked for “Ma Bell” (NY Telephone / A T & T) before teaching myself to be a computer programmer and started designing custom software for businesses in 1985.

I have developed application systems for medical laboratories, professional associations, new car dealerships, manufacturing companies, wholesale order tracking and retail invoicing systems.

When my daughter (the ATC) was in fifth grade, I took my vacation from the Telephone Company, one day a week for ten weeks, to teach computer programmer to her fifth grade class. However, it was not for over a decade or so before I got the “bug” to teach when offered a teaching position at a local college.

The rest is, as they say, “history,” and I have been teaching since, in my effort to “download” what I have learned to the next generation, which I believe is what teaching is all about, right ?

All was well, as I strove to achieve the requisite degrees appropriate for my new career as a teacher, until about two years ago, when I was offered (or should I say “challenged “?) an opportunity to teach high school, after being far too removed from such an environment myself. I soon realized that there was much more to teaching at that level than I had had time to prepare for !

So, now I’m back to school myself, after knowing what to teach, now to learn how to teach !

As a computer programmer, I have always felt that technology should be embedded into education, and not just a tool to implement education, so that the students are facilitated in their learning.

I firmly believe that if we expect them to learn, we not only need to give them a reason, but also make it exciting so that they will want to learn.