Easy A Grades

In my seventh and eighth grade years we were required to produce reports for our math class. I can't say for certain what sort of material filled the reports of other students. Since it was pretty unusual for a middle school student to know how to program computers back in 1981 I had no difficulty getting my teacher's permission to write both my 7th and 8th grade reports on programming.

For 7th grade I wrote a report that explained programming on the TI-57 calculator. I hand typed the report on a manual typewriter. I remember being up all night before it was due (I had a bad habit of doing that).

For 8th grade I wrote a report introducing the BASIC programming language. The teacher decided that I should use the blackboard to explain to the class how it all worked. If memory serves, I remember that the presentation was also attended by a trained programmer, who happened to be the father of one of my fellow students.

I knew more than the teacher about this subject, so these were easy A's. :-)