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The Unplanned Path: Finding Passion in Teaching and CSS
646 Plays13 days ago
In this episode I delve into my personal journey of becoming a teacher and the unexpected paths that led me to where I am today. From my love of CSS to the joys and challenges of teaching, I explore how both elements have shaped my career. I also talk a bit about the boring bits of what I do, and how some of the worst parts can be the best parts, as well as the importance of community support, and a bit of self-analysis about why I do what I do. Thank you for being a part of this journey!
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Transcript
Introduction and Recent Break
00:00:00
Speaker
Hello, my front end friends, and welcome to my podcast, General Musings. My name is Kevin, and here at my podcast, I talk about whatever is front of mind for me in any given week, usually in some way that's related to front end development.
00:00:11
Speaker
Though this week, I will be talking about CSS a bit, but it's going to a little bit different, I think. um But before we even get to that, just a little bit of an aside, i do want to just mention that I had missed a few weeks of the podcast, so thank you for anyone ah who's still sticking around and listening. i had a few things happen that made it so I couldn't record, and unlike my other content that I tend to batch do, well not all my other content, my videos that I batch create,
00:00:42
Speaker
as So I'll record like a bunch of videos and then it goes through all the steps in batches, generally speaking. My podcast is a weekly thing that I do because i enjoy doing it and it just, I can't come up with ideas for it.
00:00:55
Speaker
i did i Well, I guess I could, but I like just talking about whatever is front of mind for me in any given week, as I say in the introduction. So it's it's a fun thing for me to be able to do and I enjoy doing it.
00:01:08
Speaker
And so, yeah, here we are. um But yeah, thank you for sticking around for those weeks that I had missed. ah Sorry about that. And we're going to keep on going.
A Glimpse into Kevin's Daily Life
00:01:17
Speaker
ah The other thing is, if you're watching this on YouTube, you might be like, oh, did Kevin get contacts or something? No, I've just misplaced my glasses.
00:01:25
Speaker
And ah that's always a fun thing to do. I actually and generally don't. I always have them on, but ah the last two weeks when I wasn't recording, I was barely on my computer at all and that meant I wasn't wearing my glasses very much. They're getting old now, so they're a little bit loose. My wife's been tired. Honestly, I should have gotten new glasses like two years ago, but they've been doing fine for me. But I guess I just don't know i what I did with them.
00:01:53
Speaker
And I generally don't misplace them or when I do, they're usually in like one of three places. And now it's been three days where I have no idea where I put them. And it's kind of annoying. And my prescription is really low, so it's not the end of the world.
00:02:06
Speaker
But by the end of the day, when I'm on the computer especially, it's with like type and everything. And again, it's a really minor prescription, but I definitely do notice it by the end of the day that i'm just my eyes are more tired. um But I can get through my work, so it's not the end of the world.
00:02:21
Speaker
But yeah, just if you're, there's been a few videos I've done on YouTube where I haven't been wearing my glasses a long time ago to now. I haven't done one in quite a while and people mention in the comments something about how it looks weird or whatever. So just in case you are watching, that's what's going on there. And if you're just listening to the audio version of this, well, ah sorry for the the random tangent.
Discovering Passion for CSS
00:02:42
Speaker
And I guess with with that out of the way, we move on to this week's topic, which is something I've been thinking about a little bit lately. And originally I was going to be recording this episode about why I like CSS.
00:02:57
Speaker
And just because that had sort of been front of mind for me in a little bit. But with everything that's been going on, I was thinking more, i don't know, I've just been thinking about stuff, like life in general. ah more so lately than I have in a while. And it made me realize something is like, I've always, i guess because people see me as the CSS guy, ah I sort of identify that way to a certain extent. Like, what do I do? I write CSS, I teach people CSS and and help people realize that CSS is awesome. It's always about, you know, that the the CSS evangelist, all these things that are,
00:03:34
Speaker
making people like CSS and that type of thing. That's what I see myself as and I guess how i identify these days. And I'm so really lucky that that's literally what I do for a job. It's kind of weird. It's not really a job in a way. Like here's this vanilla language that just like I'm help. I don't know. It's weird.
00:03:53
Speaker
um But anyway, that it is what it is. And i'm very lucky. that That is what I do because i really enjoy writing CSS. if it's If it's not obvious already, it's something that I really, really like to do.
00:04:06
Speaker
ah But as I was thinking about it and why I like it so much, I realized something. And near the end of the sort of bullet points that I drafted for the original version of this, one of the things that came up was how teaching it has made it so I'm much, I like it a lot more because I understand the language so much more because I had to go into the nitty gritty and understand it at a very deep level and go through the documentation whether it's MDM or at the actual spec which can be really dry at times and those parts aren't always the most fun but it's my deeper understanding of it has made me really um much more just I like writing it more and then when new things come I can just know how to use them because I have you know it just builds on top of the other knowledge I have and everything else and
00:04:52
Speaker
It really made me realize that if I hadn't started teaching, i wouldn't have ever, not even and got to where I am now, because obviously I wouldn't, I would be doing something different.
The Accidental Teacher
00:05:04
Speaker
But I don't think I would have had this deep appreciation of CSS, even though it's always been the favorite part of web development that I have since the very beginning. It it was always the part that I wanted to do.
00:05:19
Speaker
So it's not that i didn't like CSS or I wouldn't you know i wouldn't be some running off with some JavaScript framework instead and being in love with that. I think CSS would always be the part that I enjoyed the most.
00:05:32
Speaker
But I don't think I would have liked it as much at all if I hadn't started teaching it. And it's kind of funny because like when I was thinking about it, I'm like, how did... I become a teacher like that. That's really what I am like. Strip away the CSS side of things. That's what I teach. But really, I should identify more as a teacher than other things because that's effectively what I'm doing. And that actually makes sense as a job. Like, what what do you do? I help educate people that anybody can understand what that is.
00:06:01
Speaker
And as I started thinking about that, I realized that actually I really enjoy teaching people. I don't know if I like writing CSS more or if I like teaching people more because It is and maybe it's a bit of an ego thing that like every time you get comments from people saying how you've helped them like that's the most rewarding experience ever and when I get to meet people and they're like oh you've really helped me with like CSS and I like CSS now or I get comments on YouTube videos where people like I used to hate CSS and now it's the favorite thing I do like that for me is like okay that's why i make those are not those videos but the videos that I make.
00:06:35
Speaker
is because i see that it's actually making an impact for people. And that's like a insanely rewarding. And I really enjoy it. And I enjoyed doing it in the classroom as well when I wasn't just teaching CSS, right? And when I was in the classroom, I was teaching everything from...
00:06:54
Speaker
Photoshop to page layout and then occasionally and I will not occasionally I did a lot of the web classes but as well as the web stuff and no matter what you're teaching whenever you see something just click and start working better or somebody understands something or is able to do something better like that's so cool to be able to see that progression in somebody and so yeah I really do like teaching and I never really had thought about that in then this way before. I don't know why. um I've always realized like, oh, it's so cool. And I see those comments and those make me happy.
00:07:24
Speaker
But I never like sat back and been like, oh, I am a teacher and I have been for a long time now. It's been 10 years, more than 10 years, I think I've been teaching now. um and But it's also like, how did this even happen? is you know How did I become a teacher? And i I mean, it was basically luck. Like my wife's actually a teacher, too. She teaches in elementary school.
00:07:44
Speaker
But as I was going through ah this strange, weird path where I just kept jumping from one possible career path to another and completely different tangents that had no relation to one another, she was she went to university, got her bachelor's and to be a teacher, and now she's a teacher. And she's been a teacher ever since she graduated.
00:08:05
Speaker
Whereas i have several degrees and none of them are what I'm actually doing now in life. um The only thing I guess teaching I did end up going to school for it later on, but I never got my degree in it.
00:08:19
Speaker
i just I never finished because then I stopped teaching in the classroom to go into online teaching and be a YouTuber and all of that fun stuff.
00:08:30
Speaker
ah Which, that YouTuber thing is still weird to me, I won't lie, either. ah For a small tangent of like whenever my wife introduces me or something, or like people are like, what do you do?
00:08:43
Speaker
I'm very hesitant to say anything. about I'm an online educator or something like that, or i like I teach people. That tends to be what I say, because I realize people can like relate to that. And my my wife is always like, he's a YouTuber. And I'm like, oh, it's not really what you think. But... It's like as soon as you hear that you think like, you know, the typical influencer who's like making sensational videos and everything. I'm like, I just talk about computer code all day long.
00:09:08
Speaker
um It's like, you know, the people get really excited and then they're like, oh, okay, never mind. It's not so interesting after all. um Some people are still interested, but a lot a lot of the the interest fades.
00:09:21
Speaker
ah quite quickly. And i I don't really consider myself a YouTube. I just see YouTube as the way that I reach the biggest audience possible. um But yeah, just going
The Path to Teaching Skills
00:09:34
Speaker
backwards now a little bit. when i So I was working as a designer, for people who don't know, I'm not going to do the whole story because I've talked about it so many times.
00:09:41
Speaker
But for people who don't know, i was working as a designer for print design stuff, doing freelance stuff on the side, which is the web stuff I was doing. And then out of the blue, one of my old teachers reached out to me and said that the school that I had gone to, which was a vocational school in Montreal ah for design,
00:10:03
Speaker
was looking for new teachers. They had a lot of new students coming in, they needed some new teachers, and they thought that I would be good at it. And i was like, oh, really? um Okay. i never thought I would want to do that. Like, teaching something didn't actually sound super appealing, but what did sound appealing was the pay. Not that teachers get paid enough, but it was better than what I was work getting from my full-time job.
00:10:30
Speaker
And I was like, oh, maybe I can do that without having to work nights because I had like a one-year-old at the time too, or one or two-year-old, I think my oldest was. something like that.
00:10:42
Speaker
I'm trying to remember. He's probably like one and maybe even under one. i was just like, yes, this this would be a good idea for a little bit of more stability and everything. And because it was a vocational school, you could be hired without a degree in teaching, but you were hired as like an industry expert that would come in at an hourly rate and you get the work you were getting. But if you wanted it to actually become like a quote unquote teacher,
00:11:07
Speaker
who got the benefits of being a teacher. So you're, you know, being in the union and having, I think the union thing was always included. I'm not sure. ah But the pension and the having time to do your work that was actually paid.
00:11:23
Speaker
um it was a little bit different from
00:11:27
Speaker
And there was other benefits and everything else that would come a more consistent schedule and and everything else and sort of the whole hourly thing that I was doing. Then you had to start your bachelor's in education.
00:11:40
Speaker
And so on weekends, I started doing that. And don't remember.
00:11:49
Speaker
And so that's why I sort of have a degree in education. I did several. I don't remember how many credits i ended up getting, but I did like half the program probably. I think something like that, maybe even more than half. um I don't remember now. It's been a while.
00:12:00
Speaker
ah But yeah, so I sort of have a half a degree in education as well. And ah then it sucked doing that, though. That was I was at the time working full time as a teacher.
00:12:13
Speaker
I had my YouTube channel at that point and on weekends going to school. it wasn't every weekend. i think it was every second weekend. And then there was long breaks every now and then um to be able to do that. And so anyway, it it worked out in the end. um And I'm really happy I did that as well because I learned a lot.
00:12:33
Speaker
during those lessons. It was really interesting actually. I learned a ton and a few of the teachers at that school were fantastic. And the other thing that was really good about that is the program I was doing wasn't general education. It was specifically for vocational education. So it was really practical because I know when you're doing the more general education stuff, my wife has told me all about this, that like it's like going to university for anything where a lot of the knowledge you're getting is a you know, it's professors teaching stuff. Like none of the teachers we had were professors. They were all people who had been vocational teachers who were now teaching at the university level instead.
00:13:09
Speaker
And yeah, it was fantastic teachers who actually taught us a lot of things. And the program itself was made by these teachers as well, like actually by the ones that were teaching it or a few of them.
00:13:21
Speaker
And so it was all like this actual practical good information. It was a really and it was a good course. I probably should have finished it. But anyway, I think i think that helped me.
00:13:31
Speaker
i think the experience of all of that, plus teaching in the classroom, really helped me be a better teacher for what I do now, which is the online and everything else. um And yeah, all of this to say that...
00:13:44
Speaker
It's kind of crazy that I never
Balancing Passion and Profession
00:13:47
Speaker
planned to be a teacher. I never planned to get into web development. And now my two favorite things that I do are teaching and CSS. And that's what I get to do.
00:13:56
Speaker
But there's one thing with teaching and with just not so much CSS, I don't i guess, but mostly with the teaching thing is like, despite it being... The favorite thing that I do, like i'm um I'm very happy that this is what I do in my life.
00:14:14
Speaker
There's boring parts to it too, right? And I think this is something that like sometimes people look for the thing they can do that's going to be fun and just or they want to turn their hobby into their job because they think it's going to be fun. And it and definitely...
00:14:29
Speaker
I know there's I think two schools of thought there. Some people say never turn your hobby into a job because then it becomes a job and then you won't like it anymore. And then there's the other people saying, well, find what you love the most in life and try and do that as a living because then you'll enjoy doing it.
00:14:43
Speaker
I've done that and it's worked so far, but that doesn't mean that because you took the thing you really enjoy doing and make it into a job, and it was definitely my hobby for a while. Well, teaching, I don't know. There's a weird thing where it was my job and a hobby. I guess it was teaching was my job and the CSS was my hobby. And then I managed to merge the two of them in a way.
00:15:03
Speaker
But yeah, I love it. And there's definitely parts that I don't like. And it's kind of weird because my favorite part and my least favorite part are the same thing, where it's building demos for things.
00:15:17
Speaker
And it just depends. is it a demo? like I have two different ways that I make videos. Sometimes i have a topic that I want to teach. And i do the script, I make the whole demo, and then or no, sorry, I don't make, I make the outline, and then have everything there, and then I'm like, okay, I need a demo to be able to teach all these things I'm talking about, and then I have to make some sort of thing.
00:15:40
Speaker
And then I record and edit and blah, blah, blah. The other way around is i want to, I just have an idea for something and I just make the demo and then i work the outline and the video around that demo that I've already made.
00:15:57
Speaker
When I do that second way around where I build the demo first, I'm having fun building whatever it is I'm doing. I'm just like, oh, this looks cool. I want to experiment with this. I want to play with this. This is a new thing, or this is just, have an idea or I see something that I want to do and I'm just having fun writing CSS.
00:16:11
Speaker
And that's like the best part of something is that I can make content around me just basically nerding out or having fun making a demo. Like that's just so cool and so much fun that I can do that.
00:16:22
Speaker
And so that's where the demo making part of it is the favorite part of the entire production thing that I do. And then when it's the other way around, when it's more of like a formal lesson, let's call it,
00:16:33
Speaker
It's where making the demos is the part that I dread the most. I like outlining things. I like doing all of that. That might sound weird, but like I do like creating like a proper lesson. I think that's interesting. I learn a lot by doing that, like a crazy amount by doing that because I'm often then deep diving into some of those things just to make sure I'm correct on things or making sure I understand things like I enjoy that side of things.
00:16:58
Speaker
But then I have to make a demo that fits with what I'm trying to teach. And then that for me often is like, oh, OK, let's make this thing that I have to do. And that's really where it becomes like, oh I have to do this part of it now.
00:17:12
Speaker
ah Yeah, i sorry, I've gone on like a complete tangent. I wasn't planning to get into this, um but.
The Art of Podcasting
00:17:18
Speaker
It's yeah you're you're here listening. Hopefully you're doing something and enjoying this conversation. You're driving or doing the dishes or something else. And you just like having the noise in the background, I guess, or doing some work maybe at the same time. Maybe you're doing that thing you dread like I was just talking about.
00:17:33
Speaker
But yeah. That's, you know, part of life is just finding those things that, you know, nobody likes doing the dishes in general. I'm guessing some people might or like collecting the trash and all those things like those are parts of our lives that we have to do. So it happens whether it's life or at work or whatever else it is.
00:17:51
Speaker
um But yeah, and despite that, having the parts that aren't the most fun, it's still... amazing that this is what I get to do every day. um And I'm in a way looking to try and motivate myself now because I actually, as I'm talking through this, I'm like, I have a few things or those demos that I need to build right now.
00:18:11
Speaker
And I'm like, I'm going to record a podcast instead because I don't feel like doing that right now. And I've been looking for other things to do, ah which is why we're here. And I had this other idea and I guess it's led I went from what I wanted to talk about into, I guess, a little bit of self-analysis of why I'm not actually doing my other work right now, ah which...
00:18:33
Speaker
This is something that I had to do also, but I enjoy doing this part of it. So, and it's all actually another tangent. This is going to be a bit of a longer solo episode by the looks of it.
00:18:44
Speaker
Another tangent of how it's really weird that I'm so used to talking into the camera like this. Like I, mean this is, I feel like I'm talking to you when I do this. And when I'm recording YouTube videos, I feel like I'm talking you.
00:19:01
Speaker
you which is strange because I'm looking at a camera lens and it's I guess I've been doing it for eight years now YouTube videos and the camera lens thing has been a bit shorter than that but say six years of staring into a camera lens has just made it sort of this natural thing where I'm looking there I've even done interviews And now I have like I forget what it's called, but I have like this teleprompter thing that's also a second monitor. So if I'm doing interviews, I actually see the person's face like in front of my camera lens, which is perfect.
00:19:32
Speaker
But I've done tons of interviews where I'm not even looking at the person, I'm just staring at the lens and it's super natural for me. And I don't know, it's this weird thing or even, ah When I'm practicing for conferences or talks and stuff like that, and the computer might not even be on, but I'm just sitting at my desk, computer's usually on, and I have my notes somewhere, but I'll just like be staring. Anytime I'm thinking of oh i'm addressing the audience now, I'm staring into the lens. It's a really weird thing.
00:19:59
Speaker
its And I just thought of it now because I'm just staring into a lens. But I really do feel like it's a weird one sided conversation. though as I'm saying this, this whole idea of like podcasting and anything else or not always because sometimes I'm doing interviews. But um yeah, it's this weird relationship um between people and the listener and and the speaker in in situations like this where I love podcasts. My favorite thing. I listen to them all the time and I really do feel like they're personal in this weird way, considering it's a one way conversation.
00:20:33
Speaker
And I'm guessing you feel the same way if you're listening to it and you still are like 20 minutes in or whatever we are now. But wow, we've gone way off topic there before I keep on rambling about other things.
Gratitude and Audience Connection
00:20:43
Speaker
The last thing I do want to say, though, is this.
00:20:45
Speaker
I want to say a really big thank you to you as well, because if it wasn't for you and everybody else who is listening and supporting my content and watching my videos and everything else that's going on, I wouldn't be able to do these things that I do love.
00:21:00
Speaker
uh it's a real just yeah i'm lucky to be here but i i'm lucky to be here uh whenever i say that people like it's because you're good at it and i realized i must have a ah skill at being able to communicate these things or else i wouldn't be here and i've put in work to be able to get here but i know a lot of people who are really good at what they do and they put in lots of work and it just doesn't click for whatever reason um But I'm glad I've been able to make these personal enough connections with people who are following me that they continue to follow me and support me and everything else.
00:21:32
Speaker
And I really, i wouldn't, I literally wouldn't be here doing this today if it wasn't for you and everyone else's support. So just thank you very much. And of course, until next time, don't forget to make your corner of the internet just a little bit more awesome.