A glob of peanut butter piles up on Brett Wortzman’s finger as students in his intro to computer science class shout commands at the man who left his job at Microsoft to become a teacher.

“I’m making half the money I used to make … it’s often dark when I leave in the morning and dark when I come home, but it is all worth it,” Wortzman said. “I am so much more happy now.”

It shows.

It’s the first week of class at Issaquah High School and Wortzman is pretending to be a computer. He has instructed his students to walk him through making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. He grins at the Jif on his hand. It is a casualty of the lesson as the students figure out through trial and error that their commands need to be precise.