Monday, December 22, 2008

What's All This, Then? (or: Introductions, Ahoy!)

This is the way the world ends:
Not with a bang but a blogger.

Salutations and exaltations, bloggers and bloggees. I'm Magister L., and this is my blog.

I know, I know; I can hear you: "Who are you, and why should I keep reading this?"

Simply enough, I'm a student teacher. Or, at least, I will be. Starting in January, I'll be student teaching eighth grade language arts for a period of about eight weeks, followed by eighth grade science for another period of about eight weeks. As part of the Student Teacher Chronicles project, masterminded by Joel of So You Want to Teach, I'll be blogging my experiences, reflections, questions, insights (*snicker*), and frustrations. I'm hoping this will serve both as a tool for self-evaluation and as a resource for other student teachers and education majors - something to give them a first-hand account of all the zany adventures that will, no doubt, ensue (and believe me, if I'm involved, they will be zany).

A little about me, if you're interested:

I've wanted to be a teacher since I was about twelve. Before that, I wanted to be a mad scientist or an under appreciated, off-beat writer. With my current major/track, I'm looking to be certified to teach science and language arts in grades 4-9 (yeah, my state has a weird system). In essence, I hope to teach the next generation of mad scientists and/or under appreciated, off-beat writers.

I graduated early from high school and went straight to college, so I'm fairly young. As in, old enough for boozing, gambling, and paying for my own health insurance (only one of which I actually do*), but just barely. This is intimidating, because I'm less than ten years older than the kids I'll be teaching.

I've spent the last two years as a tutor, tutoring students ranging in age from 11 to 60 in writing, lit, philosophy, logic, Eastern religions, bio, physical science, environmental science, history, math, technology and...well, pretty much whatever they threw at me. I'm hoping some of the tutoring tricks I've picked up will translate to teaching tricks, once I'm in The Show (er, The Classroom).

On the non-education front, I'm into reading (anything: fiction, non-fiction, poetry, drama, comic books, etc.), music (punk, ska, folk, hardcore, hip-hop, etc.), politics (Chuck Todd is the man), and geekin' it up in general.

While I appear to be a simple middle school education major by day, at night I fight crime as the masked superhero Magister L., blinding bad guys with my Overhead Projector Vision before hitting them with a radioactive copy of Crime and Punishment (which not only knocks them out, but improves their reading ability by five grade levels). As such, I must conceal my identity on this site, lest my nemesis, The Standardizer, find out who I really am.

Or...well, maybe not.

Fair enough, for an intro? If anyone has more questions, ask away in the comments section. More posts to come, shortly.

Until next time, keep the miles in your eyes and the pride in your strides,

The Educational Man of Mystery


*I'm talking about the health insurance.