4CA’s Hagler ramping up to teach technology to ninth-, 10th-graders

Editor’s Note: This is the fourth installment in a series of stories profiling non-traditional instructors at the Commodore Conyers College and Career Academy.

ALBANY — Commodore Conyers College and Career Academy (4CA) Information Technology instructor Darren Hagler has spent most of his adult life around computers. In January, he will still be surrounded by computers, but this time he’ll be working with them for the first time in front of a gaggle of ninth- and 10th-graders.

The Academy’s 450 students are churning through the first semester to determine one of 14 career pathways they will select in January. Then the teaching begins.

“I don’t think I will have a problem in making my first classes,” Hagler, who spent eight years in the U.S. Navy after graduating from Albany High School, said. I did three years of training in electronics and computers. I spent three years overseas in Sicily and two years on ships out of Jacksonville (Fla.).

“I got out of the Navy in 2004, and from there I worked in various technology positions in the Albany area. My last job was as an IT and cybersecurity instructor at Albany Technical College.”

While all current students at the 4CA are undergoing pathway explorations, Hagler said the Academy’s 24 instructors are helping the students learn the professional skills they need to apply for and get a job.

“These are the ‘soft skills’ we teach every day that hopefully will help them learn the skills they need to be successful in life,” he said.

After the pathway explorations are completed, Hagler will begin teaching introduction to digital technology in earnest.

“I want to teach them the basics of digital technology and give them a good foundation for the more advanced classes that will come later when they go on to Albany Tech or Albany State,” Hagler said. “I’ve never taught high school students, but I have taught at Albany Tech, where I taught mostly adult learners. But I’ll be dealing with ninth- and 10th-graders here, and there is a big difference..”

Hagler said the first thing he will teach his young charges is safety.

“The first thing in any kind of technical instruction is always going to be safety so they will learn how to be safe around the equipment and what they can and can’t do,” he said. “Then we will get into the history of computers and the Internet and how we got to where we are today. Basically, I want to help them understand where it all came from and to how technology became so big in our lives.”

As one of the “sexy” and most familiar pathway options available at 4CA, Hagler said, “I don’t think we’ll have trouble making classes; they should all be pretty full.”

The Albany native said he expects cybersecurity will be especially appealing to his students.

“Cybersecurity is never going to go away, it will always be with us,” Hagler said. “Mainly, at this level, I will be teaching the kids how to keep themselves and their families safe online, what’s practical and appropriate for them to do on social media, how to have strong passwords … basic stuff like that.”

Hagler said he is looking forward to teaching his first classes, but he admits he has no idea what to expect in a classroom full of ninth- and 10th-graders.

“It’s going to be different,” he said.