The Computer Lab

One day in 1980 I arrived in my grade nine algebra class to find that a new desk had arrived. It was at the back of the class and had a locked cover on it. We were all extremely curious to find out what was under it. Gus Attiana was my algebra teacher at the time, and even though he know what awaited us in the box, I’m sure he had no idea what effect it was going to have on some of our lives.

As the class started he gathered us all around this new box, opened it, and revealed the first personal computer any of us had ever seen. It was a brand new TRS-80! I think most of the class was somewhat underwhelmed, but for me and a couple of other classmates, it was amazing!

Mr. Attiana spent the next few weeks trying to teach most of us BASIC programming, but it was pretty clear that most either weren’t catching on, or simply were not interested. So instead of continuing with teaching computer programming, he went back to teaching algebra.

This in itself is not all too remarkable. But what I’ll never forget about Mr. Attiana is that for the rest of my time in Junior High, he kept his math classroom open for two hours after school every day for kids like us - those who “got it” - to continue to learn how to program.

After a while it was pretty clear to him that his students quickly knew more about these “boxes” than he did. He accepted that, and instead of teaching us new things, he empowered us to try new ideas by asking us questions like “do you think your program could do this?” or “how would you make that sprite move diagonally”.

Had Mr. Attiana not opened his classroom to us, I’m not sure I’d be enjoying the fantastic career that I have now.

Thank-you Mr. Attiana, for everything you did.