Always wanted to teach analog at my kids High School!

[CKDC]

Pot is legal in your state. That might help.

 

[ducati_EL34]

If you don't have a teacher's license, you probably won't be able to during regular school times. However, many towns have adult/kid classes put on by a parks and recreation department, where no degree is required, and you can charge a fee (if you wish) for the class and material (if required).

He would not be teaching part of the state mandated curriculum, so I don't see a problem with it.

When I was in H.S, they brought in three prison inmates (all convicted of murder) to talk with us. One of them was even left in my classroom (unattended).

If you have some good private schools in your area. That might even be a better place to try it. The children (or their parents) will certainly have the money to get into the hobby!

 

[WaynerN]

Well, hopefully the state does a background check on the guy to see if he's a sex offender or rapist or murderer. I think inviting anyone onto the schools grounds to teach or bla, bla, bla anything to our kids should be trained and approved by the powers to be. I'm not saying the OP is any of these things, but his comments are certainly not an approval to do what he suggests. Always a bad idea.

 

[Hajidub]

the hardest obstacle to overcome is all the federal and state act clearances to be allowed on the property beyond the office...

I haven't made the sex offender list so I'm pretty sure it won't be an issue. My kids school is tight in security, but open to alumni offerings during school hours.

 

[Hajidub]

Is your goal to help students discover how analog audio technology works, via a respectful discussion with intellectual equals, where you might learn as much from them about their listening means and preferences as they do from you?

Or is your goal to convince young people that analog audio is better?

As someone who makes a living teaching essentially same demographic only a year or two later -- i.e., undergraduate university students -- and who sometimes receives requests from folks in the community to come give guest lectures, I occasionally see well-meaning but inappropriate intent.

If you have specialist knowledge you'd like to share in a genuine attempt to increase both students' knowledge and your own, that's fine. I hope you find a way to do it.

However, if your intent is to persuade students that you are right and they are wrong -- i.e., that their listening preferences are inferior and yours are superior -- and "convert" them to analog audio, then that's not an appropriate use of an educational setting.

I don't participate in the analog/digital debate Dave. My kids know how analog works, why a record works, their friends that come over find the concepts mind blowing. BTW, I auditioned for a TED talk years ago on beginners guide to record collecting and analog essentials.

 

[ducati_EL34]

I think inviting anyone onto the schools grounds to teach or bla, bla, bla anything to our kids should be trained and approved by the powers to be. I'm not saying the OP is any of these things, but his comments are certainly not an approval to do what he suggests. Always a bad idea.

Bull$hit. What is always a bad idea?

I know of some schools that have a Ham Radio Field day, and I doubt they go through the bureaucratic tedium you are proposing.

 

[triode17]

I like your idea. Forget all the naysayers. But what about a class to show how listening to music on speakers is a communal experience.
Experiments show that a person sitting in a room with headphones will be ignored by passersby. Yet if the same person is listening to speakers, people stop and listen and talk to each other. What a great concept!

 

[trainbuftony]

I got in ited to a charter school to help a pupil who showed an interest in electronics. He had made a hydrogen generator, but had depleated his battery. We took the battery out of my car, and wired a lightbulb in serries with his electrodes. The bulb dimmed and brightened as we moved the probes closer together in the brine. The kid commented that the bulb looked like a vacuum tube and we tslked for a few hours. I ended up giving him an oscilloscope, and some other stuff before i left, then i never heard about the kid again.

 

[GerardG]

I just found this thread and will add my two cents if I may.

As a school teacher with 39 years experience. I have done exactly this. That is taken a Victrola, the very one in my profile, to school along with cassettes, CDs, 8 track tapes,78s, 33s, 45s and the various means to play them and incorporated into music, English, and science curriculum. I'd do this once a year or so calling it “Musicology Day.”

Most kids have not seen 78s or even cassettes let alone listened to them. Turntables can be used in mathematics and physics. Victrolas for technology development and history. The music itself for how popular culture changes and for poetry. The possibilities are truly endless. One simply needs a little imagination to apply it.

Imagine kids experiencing the science of sound in practical, real life ways. That is hearing/listening, making, and reproducing it. Then discovering how technology develops and changes popular culture. How societal issues of the day reflect in music, though its prose, and poetry. The precision of mathematics and the the glory of the human experience can all be taught with music and the tools used to play it.

It wasn't about analog or digital for me. It was to give kids the unique ability to see and use the technology and develop understanding of how, why, and when this technology changed and how music changed. This gives them insight into how our world has changed. How we've changed. Besides, how often will kids ever see such things other than in a museum where they certainly would not be allowed to touch let alone encouraged to use and share their opinions and experiences with new as well as thirty, fifty, or century old devices and recordings.

Gerard

 

[rcs16]

What a load of crap, analog/digital debate, like they stopped making small signal transistors last week. Sure you need to learn to code in "C", but you also need to know how to bias a bjt as well. You ultimately need the necessary skills for what work is available or your education can be a big waste of $. An expert in nothing usable.
As far as I am concerned, an older person, with 40 years of on-hands experience offers children a lot more life experiences than some green young buck educator with little or no work experience. This is why kids drop out because the teachers are boring, with little life experiences to share. Sure I can stare at a cell phone too and become a zombie.

 

[DaveVoorhis]

What a load of crap, analog/digital debate, like they stopped making small signal transistors last week. Sure you need to learn to code in "C", but you also need to know how to bias a bjt as well. You ultimately need the necessary skills for what work is available or your education can be a big waste of $. An expert in nothing usable.
As far as I am concerned, an older person, with 40 years of on-hands experience offers children a lot more life experiences than some green young buck educator with little or no work experience. This is why kids drop out because the teachers are boring, with little life experiences to share. Sure I can stare at a cell phone too and become a zombie.

Looks like somebody needs a hug.

 

[rcs16]

okay, I will go and hug my wife, I have said all that I will on this subject. I'll go back to buying/using my Chinese mfg'd parts with no tariffs applied.

 

[Ken Boyd]

Kids are pretty bright today, if they want to learn about how a turntable works they can google it. Anyone that wants to teach people doesn't need to go into the schools, all they need to do is open a You Tube account. You ever see how many old long guys are on You Tube playing with records? The kids like You Tube too.

 

[IPADave]

What a load of crap, analog/digital debate, like they stopped making small signal transistors last week. Sure you need to learn to code in "C", but you also need to know how to bias a bjt as well. You ultimately need the necessary skills for what work is available or your education can be a big waste of $. An expert in nothing usable.
As far as I am concerned, an older person, with 40 years of on-hands experience offers children a lot more life experiences than some green young buck educator with little or no work experience. This is why kids drop out because the teachers are boring, with little life experiences to share. Sure I can stare at a cell phone too and become a zombie.

Wow!

 

[AudioFeline]

On an Aust. audio forum, a final-year high school student shared how he was designing and making a pair of speakers for his electronics project practical major (basically, he made a crossover from a kit, and was designing and making the cabinet to install full-range drivers). Maybe there could be an opportunity to be a mentor for a similar student.