Day 31 - Teaching Networks

I went of to the CompSci department today after a coffee and quick look at email. I was scheduled to audit another networks instructor, however, when I got there it turns out he called in sick and they had no one to cover the lesson. Col Rahman asked me if I could do it, with about 5 minutes notice. Luckily it was a lesson on RIP, so I agreed and it all turned out well. I enjoyed interacting with the students at this level, although I did need a Dari interpreter. A hand full of the students spoke English well enough to follow along and ask questions, but I was careful not to focus the lesson interacting with just them.

Several times the cadets brought up the fact that they do too much theory and not enough hands on at NMAA. However, based on the classes I've sat in on so far, I think NMAA has a bit too much skill training and not enough education (aka "theory"). That's one of the reasons we're here as mentors. When I got to the end of the class period and summed things up by talking about the Bellman-Ford Algorithm that is behind RIP, I asked two of the students their names. Once they told me I said, "Don't you want to develop the next great routing algorithm? We can call it the Najibullah-Muhsini algorithm" (or something similar). The "theory" in computer science is what sets it apart from system administration, which is what it seems many of them want to do. I can't think of much greater fame than discovering an algorithm and having it named after you. I tried to convey to them the immortality of it all, and I think most of them got it. Hopefully it will help them appreciate the "theory" a bit more. Perhaps, perhaps not.

Later in the morning I audited a data structures class. Pretty painful. In the interest of diplomacy I won't be too critical here, but suffice it to say, I've now seen the whole spectrum of instructors, and the others were quite good. Now I have to figure out a way to report back to Col Rahman in a delicate way that doesn't do any damage to the instructor or his pride. This will be a tough one.

Well, I'm pretty much at the half way point now. My orders were for 62 days and this wraps up day 31. Time has gone fast, and there is lots more to do. More tomorrow.