What is your name, what is your job/department, and how long have you worked here at D219? My name is Mr. David Ruth and I’ve worked here at Niles North since 1996, so this is my 27th year. Right now I’m in the Engineering Computer Science and Business Department. I teach AP Computer Science, Advanced App Development, and Cyber Security. Before that I was in the Math Department for almost 25 years; I’m teaching all levels.

You and your computer science team allegedly developed a useful and portable answer sheet scanner. Can you expand upon that? [My] students actually created, from scratch, a portable answer sheet scanner. The bubble sheet that students have been using for years and years that you usually have to run through a primary machine like a Scantron… you can actually just run it on any computer that has a webcam. It grabs a photo of it in real-time and scores all the answers on it

What is your favorite thing about your job, in and out of the classroom? My favorite part of the job is seeing the creativity and innovation that my students [have]. When they take things that they’ve learned in class and surpass what I’ve tried to teach them and actually build upon [that] to create some, just wildly fantastic pieces of software.

How would you describe your teaching style? My teaching style… style is geared towards…expectations, especially with AP. As they’re learning those [topics], I always try to make projects for them to do that are extremely meaningful, worthwhile, and something that is just beyond what they’re capable of. So, it incorporates many of the things they’ve learned already and just a little bit of the things they haven’t so they’re challenged a little bit to meet those.

What do you value most in your work? What do you prioritize the highest? Oh, that goes back with my favorite part of teaching…seeing the innovations and the wonderful projects that they [work on]. I tell my AP Computer Science students that, specifically, the number one goal for the class is to make sure they’re inspired to innovate and have a chance to create wonderful software. The number two goal is to get prepared for the AP test. So, they’re pretty close together, so we spend a lot of time preparing for the AP test.

What do you want your students and pupils to get out of your teaching? The inspiration [and] that computer science is literally the primal and [most formal] thing that will be changing in the world. There will not be any world-changing event where software is not at the root of it. Guaranteed. Just look at AI. That’s a game-changer.

Why did you choose to teach computer science and to teach/tutor math Well, I mean, I’ve been teaching math since 1993. I taught for two years at Loyola Academy before coming here. So, math was always a passion of mine; I felt that it was so important. And computer science, for many years, was in that department, so I had the notion and the drive to teach computer science. So, that was sort of my task while I was in the math department because computer science used to be in the math department for many, many years. And I just had a real passion for programming.

What is your proudest personal achievement? Proudest work achievement? Proudest work achievement? Boy, it possibly could be the portable answer sheet scanner that we just did this year. The notion of it being portable, since we’re not tied to any particular student database, Literally, teachers at any school, anywhere, could use it for their own use. So, we’re making it free and open source, and could turn out something that could be extremely useful to teachers literally all over the world. Any teacher with a computer and a webcam could use it.

Did you always expect to be a teacher? Did you have a different work life in mind before? When I graduated college, I thought I’d be able to make it as a trumpet player. I was playing a lot and was working with several bands, but it certainly was not enough money to pay the bills that needed to be paid. So, when I was subbing…that’s where my passion grew. That would have been shortly after I graduated college; I was subbing in music and math in this area. And that’s, sort of, when I was subbing math, that’s when I realized I still had a great passion for math and computer science.

What would you recommend as a goal or career for students interested in computer science? Oh boy, a goal for computer science…the goal here is definitely to treat computer science as a problem-solving tool. There are problems in the world that need to be solved and computer science becomes a tool to help solve those problems. So, obviously, as the problems get bigger and more challenging to solve, you need to have greater computer science skills in order to solve them.

What is your funniest memory as a teacher and tutor at Niles North? Funniest memory? Wow, that’s a good one. How about this: When I started having my programming students sit around in a  circle and what we call the “head slappers;” head slappers are when they wind up with some kind of a bug in their code and it could take anywhere to ten [minutes], to twenty minutes, to even a day, or even wait until the next day to figure it out. And they come back and it was something so small and minor that it’s one of those, “Oh!” and you slap your head, and it’s like, “Why didn’t I think of that before?” Those are actually kind of funny and they build a lot of camaraderie (friendship) with the programmers.