Anne's 30-Year Computing Career (Parts M - R --> from 1985 to 2015)-- by Anne Shier

My 30-year Career in Computing from 1985-2015 -- by Anne Shier Part M I was convinced by this time that teaching computer science was what I was meant to do with my life. I liked the kids in my classes; they appeared to like me back; and, I would not have had it any other way. Teaching was enjoyable and, through it, I could develop the kinder side of my personality - the part I liked most about myself. In the fall of 2000, I was finally offered a full-time teaching job at Don Mills C.I. and was thrilled to accept it.  I would spend the next 3 years there teaching a lot of different courses related to computers, but not necessarily computer programming - computer engineering, for one thing, was just another brand new thing I had to learn so that I could teach it. Fortunately, I was very interested in the course material (computer networking) and embraced this new task in my career quite happily.  Two years later, I had passed all of my teaching performance appraisals (4 of them) and was then given the much-coveted "permanent" status that I'd been seeking for so long.	Part N In my third year at Don Mills C.I., the Ministry of Education decided to do away with OAC (Ontario Academic Credits), which used to be known as Grade 13. I suppose it was thought that OAC was a wasted year in high school and that the entire high school curriculum could be taught in 4 years instead of 5. That was the year I was declared surplus (a procedure done in every public school annually).  Only now, I was in a position in which I had some documented teaching experience; I just had to hope that another school had a need for my particular skill set as a teacher. It was almost the end of the summer of 2003, just before the Labour Day weekend, when I got the telephone call to report to Albert Campbell C.I. I got this position for only one reason - because I could teach the Java programming language, a language I had managed to learn while teaching at Don Mills.
Part O I started teaching computer science at Albert Campbell that fall, thrilled to have been sent there.  I continued to be assigned to teach computer science courses, mostly to Grades 10 and 11.  Later, I was asked by the Business department to teach business technology, which consisted of teaching user software like Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, Access, and PowerPoint), Internet, and web page design to Grade 9. That was perfect for me.  Even later, I was asked by the head of computer science to teach computer engineering, a course that was included in the CS roster of courses at the time. A few years later, I was asked to teach Introduction to Business, which was not considered a computer-related course at all; still, I made it one by creating several PowerPoint presentations on the chapters of the Business textbook and uploading them all into a PickUp folder under my name, "Shier", for this course. Every student at Campbell has access to the PickUp folder no matter what courses they take. It's a very handy thing for students to have.  My teaching career was going gangbusters. In other words, I was having the time of my life at Campbell.	Part P While teaching at Campbell, I earned 2 additional AQ courses at UT-OISE during the next 3 summers (I took one summer off), finally earning my Computer Science Specialist certificate. I also made a decision to enroll in a certificate program in Information Technology at Ryerson U. that would span 3 years of part-time study. In fact, my IT and CS Specialist certificates allowed me to eventually reach the top of the salary grid. In conclusion, although I've had some setbacks and disappointments during my computing career, the moments that mean the most to me are my students' achievements.  I reasoned that if they succeeded in my classes, that meant I also succeeded as their teacher.  It's been an amazing feeling to have accomplished so much in just the last 15 - 17 years of teaching computer science as well as other courses. (I had also taught computer studies at Seneca College night school for a couple of years). Without any hesitation, I can say that teaching (especially teaching computer science) is, and has been, the best career I’ve ever had.
Part Q  Public school teachers in Ontario have suffered much in the last few years because the Province of Ontario is broke; the TDSB is broke; and, when it comes to looking for scapegoats, teachers’ salaries, benefits, and working conditions have all traditionally come under attack. So far, we are hanging together since our union, OSSTF (Ontario Secondary School Teachers Federation), has instructed us very wisely about how to act as a group during these hard times.  We know we are a strong group and we will not capitulate easily to external, or even internal, employment pressures.	Part R I am just one of those very lucky individuals who was in the right place at the right time and was thus able to take advantage of an opportunity to teach that I'd wanted for a very long time.  But, I cannot say that up-and-coming teachers in the future are going to have the same kind of opportunities I’ve had; nevertheless, I wish them all the very best.  I'll soon be retiring with a full pension that reflects the fact that I finally made it to the top of the salary grid and stayed there for at least 5 years, so I guess you could say, I am very lucky indeed to have had this wonderful teaching career for as long as I have.

Anne's 30-Year Computing Career (Parts G - L --> from 1985 to 2015) -- by Anne Shier

My 30-year Career in Computing from 1985-2015 -- by Anne Shier Part G After I graduated, with honours, from Seneca College, I was hired for 1 year at Seneca College (Don Mills campus) to tutor first year students of the CPA diploma program in Math and computer programming.  That year, I learned more about how to teach program-ming than I ever could have expected.  It taught me that I could teach programming for one thing, and that I wanted to teach programming full-time.  It was only a question of whether I could get a job in a college or a high school.  Since I was still a qualified high school teacher, I applied to the Toronto District School Board (TDSB) in the hopes that they were in hiring mode, if not for teachers of teenagers, for teachers of adults enrolled at day school. I also applied to other places while waiting to see what lay in my teaching future.  I sent my job application to RBC-FG (Systems & Technology) and, a week later, I got a call to attend an interview with a man named Jeff.  He hired me right away to work for him in RBC's Telephone Banking System.  I had never had any exposure to telephone banking or to mainframe computers, only to the COBOL programming language that RBC used.  However, I was to learn a great deal about mainframes, banking systems, and computer networks while on the job at RBC. This company was working on automating a lot of its employee (human resources) functions so that employees could apply for and modify their own benefit packages online. I was working in a state-of-the-art computer network environment that involved mainframes, PCs, and Mac computers.  It was an awesome experience that would benefit my computer career for years to come.	Part H That was year 1 of being at RBC. Then, my boss, Jeff, got transferred to another department by his boss, Danny, and I got a new male boss, Mike. Neither Mike nor I saw eye-to-eye about anything from day 1 of his sojourn with the Telephone Banking System (TBS).  I'd been getting along with all my colleagues and bosses (like Danny on up), but Mike was on my case from the moment he arrived at our department.  I did my best to do my job thoroughly and accurately, but somehow, it was never enough.  Mike continued to give me barely acceptable performance appraisals (we had to have at least 4 per year) and I was getting more and more frustrated with him and with RBC as time went by.  Finally, push came to shove and, after explaining my situation to Danny and his boss, Len, I was finally given permission to look for another position somewhere else, either in another RBC department or outside the bank.  Danny told me that I would keep my seniority and employee benefits if I stayed at RBC, but I would also get a good reference from him if I could not stay.  It was no-brainer; I had to go somewhere else, anywhere else, in order to survive.
Part I One day, I got another interview at RBC, this time with a woman named Gwen. She and I liked each other immediately and she hired me to come and work for her. This time, I would be working in the Indirect Lending System (ILS), with which I was also unfamiliar. So what? I thought. I can do this. I can do new and challenging jobs that I've never done before.  And, I was very successful in this group, considering that Gwen left RBC just a couple of weeks later. That left me in charge of the technical part of ILS and I was thrilled, mostly because it was like a promotion except that I sort of inherited the position. Nevertheless, I did very well as the sole Technical Systems Analyst for the ILS group for the next year or so.	Part J However, as the economy was still deteriorating, RBC had to make some tough choices right after their required Y2K testing was completed in preparation for the arrival of year 2000. In November 1999, I was informed that my services were no longer required at RBC, along with 2,999 other technical employees.  I got a lump sum severance payment equal to half a year's salary and I was determined not to waste that money or my time in waiting around for another job to just drop into my lap. It was now time to re-visit my old application at the TDSB to see if there was still hope of becoming a teacher (half- or full-time, I didn't care which). I wanted to teach computer science, but to get any recognized teaching experience, I had to land a teaching job somewhere (in Toronto, hopefully) - supply teaching was not going to get me what I needed anymore. And, landing a teaching job was going to be the biggest challenge for me yet.
Part K When I followed up on my TDSB application, which for some reason was circulating around various high schools, I got an offer I couldn't refuse. The head of the computer science department at Winston Churchill C.I. called me and asked me to come in for an interview, barely three weeks after I'd left RBC. His name was Doug. He and the principal wanted to discuss a predicament they were in.  They had just fired a teacher in the CS department for incompetence and they now needed a certified teacher who knew computer programming, specifically the Turing programming language. It turned out that I fit the bill as far as they were concerned and they offered me a long term occasional (LTO) position, which would only last until the end of the semester (2 and a half months away), but (most importantly) would give me required documentable teaching experience - something I sorely needed in order to move ahead in my "new" teaching career. I accepted their offer gladly.	Part L My LTO position at Winston Churchill, though challenging to complete, set the stage for my next LTO, which would start immediately after this one.  It would be at Stephen Leacock C.I. and would also involve teaching Turing, which by now, I was comfortable with. But, after suffering a horrific car accident on the way home from work one sunny afternoon in April 2000, I spent the next 8 months recovering from it and, during the summer, took what is normally referred to as an AQ (Additional Qualification) course so that I could become a fully qualified computer science teacher. This AQ course would allow me to be hired on as a full-time contract teacher, ultimately. It had taken me almost 25 years to accomplish this feat, which is saying a lot considering that I had graduated as a teacher in 1976.

Anne's 30-Year Computing Career (Parts A - F --> from 1985 to 2015) -- by Anne Shier

My 30-year Career in Computing from 1985-2015 -- by Anne Shier Part A In 1985, while living in Calgary, Alberta, I decided I had to make a badly-needed career change.  Up till then, I'd worked for a bank, done some supply teaching, even working as a temp in an elementary school full-time for awhile.  None of it was satisfying though, so I bit the bullet, so to speak, and enrolled myself into McKay Computer College in the summer of 1985 and took my very first microcomputer course. This course was actually made up of three components:  word processing, spreadsheets, and accounting software.  I had never done any of these things before; therefore, I thought I would experience a steep learning curve in doing these things for the very first time. Amazingly enough, I excelled at word processing despite being just an average typist, and at accounting software (manipulating numbers was nothing new to me!).  Spreadsheets, however, took a bit of practice, but I did manage to master this component by the end of the course.  I graduated 3 and half months later with 91% and my first college certificate.  That happened in October 1985.	Part B After that, it was relatively easy to land computer jobs, especially with a temp agency (Diversified Temporary Services).  I worked for Pan Canadian Petroleum, Sceptre Resources (another oil company), The Society of Certified Management Accountants, Billingsgate Fish Co. Ltd. and GSL Chev City. During the 1988 Olympics, I also worked for Ellis-Don Construction (in connection with television of the Olympic Games) and later at Matsushita Electric.  Every one of these jobs gave me a lot of valuable experience in both accounting and computers. I knew then that computing was the field of work I'd always been looking for. Eventually, however, my son (who was just 6 at the time) and I decided we had to move back to Toronto, which is where I was from.  My son had been born in Calgary during my all-too-brief marriage to his father.  When my husband and I finally broke up and divorced in March 1988 (during the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary), I decided finally that it was time to make the move to Toronto. That was where my family was and my son did not know any of them yet. He needed an extended family and I needed my family for support during the aftermath of my divorce.  So, in early December 1990, we took the plunge and packed up our stuff, sold my car and furniture, put most of our personal stuff on a Greyhound bus as freight, and left Calgary for good.  It had been a good city to live in as a single person and for a time while I was living with my boyfriend (before I married him), but I was truly relieved to be leaving.
Part C We boarded a Greyhound bus bound for Toronto on December 9, 1990.  This was a regular Toronto-bound bus that traveled east a total of 3 days and stopped at 8 different locations over the 3-day period.  We could get off the bus at certain stops to eat and freshen up, but we had to sleep on the bus because there was no extra time allotted for that.  So, 3 days later, we arrived in Toronto feeling rather scruffy, both needing showers badly, and a good night's sleep in proper beds.  My son thought of the whole trip as a great adventure, and in tune with his cheery attitude, I did too.  I thought maybe one day in the future, I might take a trip out west again, but next time, I would definitely stop overnight at least 3 times along the way to sleep in a hotel. In Toronto, my son was picked up by his father (with whom he was to stay in Mississauga, Ont. for awhile) and I went to live at my girlfriend Gerry's place. The reason I planned it this way is because, though I loved my family, I did not get along with my father.  We'd always had a difficult relationship and things had not gotten any better over the past 9 years of my absence. On the other hand, I was relatively close to my mother, but she always had to listen to what my father wanted and he definitely didn't appear to want us to stay with them at all. I could live with that fact though; I was used to his ornery ways by now.	Part D Gerry and I had been friends since we were kids.  She lived in a large 3-bedroom apartment with her then-husband, Bryan, and her son, David, and she told me that she was willing to rent me a bedroom for $400/month.  I thought it was the best deal I was likely to get until I could get back on my own two feet, so I stayed with her and her family for about 5 months.  I would have stayed longer, but I wasn't crazy about her husband who continually criticized me and the decisions I'd been making. Gerry also didn't like this judgmental attitude of his, but she was apparently willing to overlook his character flaw for the sake of their marriage.  After 5 months of his constant criticisms, I finally elected to look for a place of my own and work on getting my son back to live with me. Early in January 1991, I went to work almost immediately for an accounting firm, Fuller Jenks Landau, a job which, unfortunately, did not last long.  In Toronto, a recession was beginning to take a firm hold of the city and, a few months later, I was laid off from my new job.  Apparently, the partners (all 8 of them) saw my salary as just an extra, unnecessary expense that cut into their company profits.  I tried not to take the rejection personally, but it was hard not to. They weren't very nice about it when they decided to let me go.  It might have been hard for them to do what they had to do, but it certainly didn't appear to bother them much at all.
Part E I started looking for work again. Unfortunately, work of any kind was now hard to find, especially computer work, which was what I wanted.  I kept at my job search diligently for the next year and a half, but was shocked to find out that companies were moving out of town faster than you could imagine. The rents and leases were at an all-time high in Toronto and companies as well as people were finding it very hard to make ends meet.  I was no exception. Now, all I had for income was an EI cheque that I received in the mail periodically and this money was all I had to keep body and soul together for the time being. Meanwhile, I'd gotten a new boyfriend, Gil, and we started spending a lot of time together. I wanted to find a new apartment for myself and my son, but I wasn't ready to consider living with Gil yet.  We'd just met and were still getting to know each other.  Still, when an apartment became available in mid-1991, I could not afford to bypass this opportunity because I missed my son (though I saw him every weekend) and I needed to have him back living with me. He told me that he missed me too so I knew that I had to do something quickly.	Part F After I got the apartment, with Gil's help, I had to do something about my financial situation.  After giving the matter a lot of thought, I decided to take the plunge and commit to a full-time college program that would give me more credibility and an awesome skill set in computers. This is how I came to enroll at Seneca College in a 3-year program called "Computer Programming and Analysis".  It meant that I would now have to learn how to program a computer, but for some unknown reason, I felt ready to take on this new challenge in the field of computers even though I'd never programmed computers in my life. Of course, I needed to borrow the money for my college program. As difficult as I thought this would be, I managed to accomplish it fairly easily through the auspices of the OSAP program available for Ontario post-secondary students. At this point, things in my life started to turn around for the better. I got my son back finally; I was attending school full-time; I had some money (though not a lot); I had an awesome boyfriend, and I now had a future. I didn't feel depressed anymore; I saw that my experience and my growing skill set in the computer field were going to help me have a great future.  Little did I know how much my training at Seneca College was ultimately going to benefit my life.  It was a decision that turned my life around completely in ways that I could not have predicted if I'd tried.

A Summary of My Life and Teaching Career (2000 - 2015) - by Anne Shier

Hello Everyone,

I am a retired teacher who taught computer science for the most part, but also many other computer-related subjects. While I did my best to design, plan and deliver the curriculum to my students, it came to my attention recently that in the early part of my career, when I was teaching at Don Mills C.I. (2000-2003), there were students who clearly did not appreciate what I had to offer them.

To those students, I apologize fervently for anything I said in class that was inaccurate or contradictory.  I did not mean to do that.  I was going through a very tough time in my life back then.  I was just starting out as a full-time teacher after having suffered a serious car accident in which I was seriously injured and in which someone else was injured, as well. It was a "freak" accident.  That happened in the spring of 2000.  It took me 8 full months to recover completely.  Two years later in the winter of 2002, I lost my mother in another serious car accident in which our car spun out in a heavy snow storm and hit a hydro pole directly on the driver door.  I survived this accident, which killed my mother and injured my father.  No one was ever held at fault.  I can only surmise that it was also a "freak" accident - an act of God.  The fact that I survived as a full-time teacher during this incredibly difficult time indicated to me that I was meant to be a teacher.  I could just as easily have walked away from teaching at Don Mills because of the horrific emotional toll my life was taking on me.  But, I stuck it out instead and because of that, I finally got a much-coveted permanent teaching contract, full-time work with a pension, benefits, and a future.

After leaving Don Mills C.I. in 2003 due to being declared surplus to the school board, I was then hired to teach at Albert Campbell C.I. in 2003.  In the fall of 2005, my youngest sister lost her year-long battle with lung cancer and died.  Meanwhile, despite my grief at losing her, I continued to teach computers there until 2015 when I retired due to ongoing health issues.  I've taught at least 16 different courses (not including course code changes) and I've done my best to conduct my professional teaching life the way all teachers are expected to do.  I love to teach, and my students, for the most part, like being in my classes.  I don't have any reason to think otherwise.  Hopefully, I will be going to the UK later this year to start teaching again. It is my hope that I'll be teaching computer science, as well.  For certain, it will be the beginning of an exciting new phase in my life.

If you want to find out more about my life, read my fictional books (based on real life experiences). The first one is called "My Short Stories (Book One)" and the second one is called "My Short Stories (Book Two)".  These books are available at online retailers, like Amazon, in hard cover, soft cover, and e-book format.  My second book is also being made into an audio book and will be available in the spring of 2016.