Hour of Code 2019

During the second day of my new job at Amazon Web Services as a business development manager for cloud intelligence specializing in artificial intelligence, I discovered that Amazon is a premiere sponsor of The Hour of Code.

From code.org, "Code.org is a nonprofit dedicated to expanding access to computer science in schools and increasing participation by women and underrepresented minorities. Our vision is that every student in every school has the opportunity to learn computer science, just like biology, chemistry or algebra. Code.org provides the leading curriculum for K-12 computer science in the largest school districts in the United States and Code.org also organizes the annual Hour of Code campaign which has engaged 15% of all students in the world. Code.org is supported by generous donors including Amazon."

The Hour of Code is held during December in celebration of Navy rear admiral Grace Hopper, one of the founders of COBOL programming language and the engineer who coined the term "bug" to mean a computer defect after finding a moth in a mainframe computer.

Despite having missed the initial deadlines with my November start date, my fantastic and dedicated Amazon colleague Jacqueline Olliges enabled me to order swag including stickers, Amazon Future Engineer certificates of completion for students, and t-shirts for volunteers. The look on students' faces when receiving their stickers and certificates was priceless. They felt so proud having spent the hour learning about coding and imagining a future in engineering.

Amazon Future Engineer sticker

Amazon Future Engineer certificate

On December 11-13 at Philbrick Elementary in Boston, MA, kindergarten through 5th grade students participated in the international movement to teach programming and logic skills to kids. This year, Amazon sponsored an expansion of the Dance Party game, including an expanded hit song list, new characters, and effects.

Dance Party from Blain's perspective

Katia Inezian, 4th grade, creating a Dance Party scene

Aiden Alexander, 3rd grade, codes using Dance Party

Chloe Alexander, 3rd grade, finished her Dance Party level

Charis watches 5th grader Blain Assefa's creation

Using the drag and drop Sketch interface to teach programming

5th graders Blain Assefa and Yasniris

Hazel Hartung, third grade

De'Ana Florence, Philbrick science teacher and Zipei Wei, Amazon volunteer, assist 5th grade students

Dance on!

Science teacher De'Ana Florence graciously welcomed me and my colleague Zipei into her classroom. We had an excellent, memorable time and can't wait to return for next December's Hour of Code.

Lottery day

I just won the lottery! Unless you're a parent from Boston, it's not what you think. It's the school lottery.

Whenever I explain the Boston Public School lottery system, I introduce it as the hunger games for kindergarten. This is only a slight exaggeration, as it does not involve death. However, it's one of the most stressful processes I've ever been through, including applying for and being accepted into college and grad school. The lottery is based on an MIT-developed algorithm and while parents can select their desired schools, chance decides who gets accepted. Boston offers several kindergarten options: K2 is what other areas would call kindergarten, a class of 5 year olds. Boston also offers K1 for 4 year olds and K0 for 3 year olds, which is also on a lottery basis. Since demand far exceeds supply, many people like us end up with the K0 and K1 equivalent, preschool. This was a blessing for my family, because we got to stay at our favorite preschool Smart Start. 

We had been planning to stage our condo and move out of the city to a suburb with highly ranked schools. But this changes everything. Now we actually can consider staying in our beloved city. I've lived in Jamaica Plain for 10 years, and it's always felt like home to me.

I am really excited about the school Lucinda was placed into, as well as a school that we got sixth on the waitlist for.

However, it's a bittersweet day. This day could have turned out so differently for my family. And while I'm hearing several other happy stories like ours, I'm also hearing from parents who did not get assigned a spot at all, let alone one of their favorites. My heart goes out to the people who did not fare so well today. I can very easily imagine the difficult choices they are about to face. Worse still are the families lacking choice, who may not be able to move easily and who have to send their kids to an underperforming school. I am definitely feeling some survivor's guilt, as another mom aptly put it.

I am breathing a huge sign of relief, and walking around as if on a cloud. I'm finally coming out of the uncertainty that early 2014 brought, and now I have options. I feel empowered.