My name is Michael Starsman. I am a 2007 Graduate of Hickory High School, and a product of the Chesapeake Public School’s initiative to provide Chesapeake Students with a technical and practical understanding of the technologies and mechanisms that drive the and influence the everyday American.

As a High School Senior in 2006, I enrolled in a class listed as an Elective by CPS. I expected the course to ‘Probably’ be useful College, and in all likelihood, an Easier A than Trigonometry, which my Dad was pushing for. Unfortunately for me, the course turned out to be much more technical and challenging than I had hoped for. However, I was encouraged and pushed to pursue the subjects we studied: Photography and film development, Photoshop, and professionally using Microsoft Office, a skill universally used today. The class provided an interesting dynamic; plenty of radically new subjects for us to grasp, coupled with the time to explore the subjects for ourselves. The class was encouraged to learn a program or technique, and then to create with it. Retrospectively, this flexibility and push into these new frontiers brought on a new idea of its own: I was for the first beginning to learn at my own will, exploring and growing my base through the course structure. As I transitioned into college, I felt drastically more prepared than my classmates. I even began teaching people Photoshop and revising Powerpoint presentations my Fall Semester.

I present to you only one idea I wish for you to consider. I transitioned from using these programs to teaching these subjects independently, but I learned them first in the Chesapeake Public School system. Because they offered a course that was auxiliary, I was introduced to a more technological world that awaited me beyond Hickory, and it hasn’t slowed down yet. The class taught propelled us to a different echelon of understanding to the technologies that phase in and out of our fast-paced culture. As the world continues to become a more technology-oriented and digital society, we must continue to provide students with the outlets necessary to grip the world a little bit stronger upon graduation from High School. If it happened for me, someone who looked for easy course to skip out on Trigonometry, it can certainly happen to another person whose story has yet to be written.

                                                                                                                                                                Best regards,

                                                                                                                                                          Michael Starsman