06/08/2021
It’s been over six years since my Girls Only Coding Club was born! Sanya, Stella and Sofia, my 6th grade inspirations for the club, have since graduated high school now. Back then, I gave credit to Hadi Partovi for his creation of Code.org and sent him the links to our AZFamily news stories. He shared the links on his page and we went viral in 24 hours being shared all around the world (89 countries)! We were what you could say “Insta-famous” before Instagram!
So, yesterday, the last person walking off my plane in North Dakota was wearing a Code.org baseball cap and a mask. I said, “Oh, I know Code.org!” And then I looked at his eyes and said, “Oh! Wow! You’re Hadi Partovi!!!!” I’ve only ever seen one picture of him but something told me it was him behind that mask! He said, quite surprised, “Yes, I am!” I then told him it was an honor to meet him and how much of a part his Code.org played in my teaching career and thanked him for all he had done for kids (my students) and coding. What a small world, right?! And who would have ever thought I would get a chance to meet him in person and finally say thank you!
I’ve often told people that the true recognitions of teachers coming from school administration, parents, or students can be few and far between and you often wonder if the work that goes into that profession is all worth it....and it’s often years later when you find out the positive impact you had on a student and/or their family. Meeting Mr. Partovi brought my teaching career full circle as the GOCC was my personal highlight accomplishment and he (Code.org) made that possible! I hope, by our chance meeting yesterday, he, too, realizes the impact and that all his efforts made it worth it as well and that even though my thank you to him was six years later, he not only impacted my students, but he impacted me as a coding teacher! Thank you, again, Code.org and Mr. Hadi Partovi!
