Mr. Schwing
Sums Up Retirement
Mr. Charles Schwing, who retired in 2013 after teaching mathematics at
St. Francis for 36 years, urges Troubadours to follow a life path on which
they can look back with satisfaction and joy, and with no regrets.
What led you to teaching at St. Francis?
I went into teaching immediately after graduating from college in 1969. I taught math in
a public school in southeastern Massachusetts. While there, the school moved to a new building which had, for the time, a very capable computer system. I got hooked on programming the
computer and wrote attendance and grade reporting software so the school could perform these
services in-house.
When we moved to Sacramento in 1977, I got a computer programming job. I did not find
it very rewarding, so I started looking for a teaching position. In January 1979 I went to SF to
drop off a résumé and it turned out that one of their math teachers had just resigned to take a
position in Grass Valley. I was hired on the spot and was happily ensconced at SF until retirement a couple years ago.
Which classes did you teach during your tenure at St. Francis?
When I started at SF, I taught everything from Algebra 1 through Senior Math (now called
Precalculus). For a couple years Dennis Fatheree and I team-taught Physics – I did the lectures
and he did the lab sessions. During that time, SF also acquired some Apple II computers. Using
them, I taught a semester course in BASIC programming. In addition, I wrote some software
that allowed SF to produce its own report cards instead of contracting the service out to one of
the public schools.
Eventually, the school got large enough that it was no longer feasible for me to both teach
and handle the administrative duties simultaneously. The choice was easy. I stayed in the classroom and others took over the non-teaching responsibilities, a choice I’ve never regretted.
During my final years, I taught mostly Honors Precalculus and AP Calculus along with an
occasional section of Algebra 2.
How has St. Francis changed over the years?
By some metrics, SF has changed a lot. There is the impossible to miss growth in the physical plant. Enrollment was around 500 students when I started with some classrooms unused
during multiple periods of the day. Now there are well over 1000 students and few, if any, idle
rooms. When I started, only about 80% of the graduates went to college, now it is virtually
100%. The number of Honors and AP classes has grown immensely. For example, when I started there was but one section of precalculus, then called Senior Math, and no honors sections
for any of the math classes. By the time I retired, there were multiple sections of precalculus and
calculus, offered at different levels of rigor so that each student could find a course appropriate
to her needs.
SF also had classes like home economics and sewing as well as career oriented courses that
taught skills such as shorthand, typing, and operating common business machines.
The Fine Arts program has grown immensely in the last 35 years. Choir is no longer an after school activity offered on a hit and miss basis. Plays and musicals get performed in a beautiful on-campus facility. Visual arts have their own dedicated rooms instead of all having to make
do in one room (121, for those who remember the old designations).
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