HONORING OUR PAST: TECHNOLOGY ADVANCES ACADEMICS

In the mid-1980s, long-time Worthington Christian School math teacher Mark Pifer began to notice a trend in his part-time work outside of WC at a local college: the incorporation of computer technology in education. In his words, “I had the opportunity to teach at the college level part-time while I was at WC, and I was always able to see how the college academic progress was developing. I always wanted to bring the students up to that level to make sure that they were prepared. In the mid-80s, technology was becoming a big part of education, at least at the college level. I realized that if WC students were going to compete, they were going to need to know technology.” Pifer recommended to the WC administration that computers be incorporated into the curriculum, and in 1984 the school purchased six Apple IIe computers for student use. Pifer stepped away from teaching math and became the school’s first computer teacher, serving in that capacity for two years before returning to the math faculty. As a part of Pifer’s work with students in his computer classes, he developed WC’s first-ever website.