Teacher, Teacher.
Posted by kanderson on Apr 29, 2008
Well, Last week was the class I was scheduled to teach for Scalix.
It was quite disorganized, but for the most part, the student’s were protected from seeing it.
It was also very rushed, whereas the class I took wasn’t. We covered the same material, but we did it in only 60% of the time. Overall though, it went fine, and I’m happy with the outcome. I believe I made the students aware of what they needed to know, and I believe that it went pretty well.
In any case, I’m glad it’s done, though it does appear that I’ll be running another class in Chicago for the first week of June. (Nick, if you’re reading this, I’ll be there for your wedding, I wouldn’t miss it. No worries.)
The class ran from Wed-Thurs-Fri. We started building 8 desktops on Monday evening. With all the updates for Windows, Office and CentOS, it just took a long time to complete. But we finished it. Access to the classroom was given at slightly after midnight on Tuesday Night/Wed Morning. I finished setting up about 3 hours before the class started, so I was pretty tired for the first day. I think it went OK anyway.
In any case, we did manage to go for a quick tour in Ottawa on Thursday evening, after the class.
We toured the Youth Hostel in Ottawa, which used to be the Ottawa Gaol (Jail). In light of recent movies like Hostel, this must be a bit freaky to stay at. Nobody in our family has seen them, but Nicole and Melanie both said there was no way they’d stay in there. Gina took a pass on the tour. Not sure if that’s because she wanted to watch TV in the hotel room, or because she was scared, but in any case, she didn’t come.
Interestingly, Ottawa at one point was considered the most dangerous city in North America, so this jail was sorely needed at the time it was built in the 1800s. This Jail was also the site of 3 executions, including the last public execution in Canada. Two of the 3 executions were based on, shall we say, sketchy, evidence. Having said that, the person leading the tour was CLEARLY of a Liberal, anti-execution bend, so that may have been played up to support his bias; intentionally or not. Personally, I’m not sure where I stand on executions. I’m certainly OK with it in some cases, there’s talk about releasing Paul Bernardo early here, as an example. But clearly it can be overused as well.The Jail itself was interesting. The jail cells were 3×9 feet, on the top (8th) floor, we were told that initially there were no windows or heat, so it was REALLY cold in the winter. People did die from exposure. It was clearly built on the idea of punishment for wrongs, rather than reforming the person’s character. Again, this is a bit of a struggle for me, and somehow, I like both ideals, I’m just not sure yet how to reconcile them to work together. Color TV and spacious rooms are going too far in one direction, I’m OK with 12 hours of lockup and a 3×9 cell. On the other hand, freezing to death from exposure or even a lack of running water, seems over the edge. Since prisoners were not able to clean themselves regularly, many died from simple cuts once gangrene set in. The Prison hospital’s only solution was amputation, and as was simply the case in the 1800s, this was often a fatal operation, sometimes immediately, sometimes not. Having said that, this hospital was worse than most, and was closed after only 5 years of operation. From then, it was turned into the women’s section. Interestingly, if women were convicted, their children were sent to jail with them. What an ugly way to start a life.
After the class ended on Friday, we came to Montreal, which is where I’m writing from. I’ll follow up with that in another post… 
Over and out.