My name is Jennifer, and I am currently a graduate student at Chatham University in the Masters of Arts in Teaching program. I will be student teaching in the spring, and if everything goes as planned, I will graduate and become certified in Secondary English, then start job-searching for a position for the 2009-2010 school year. I have created this blog to fulfill one of the requirements for my Instructional Computer Integration class. Before I entered Chatham's program in the Summer of 2008, I had been working as an insurance adjuster in the Pittsburgh, PA area. I'm not a total newbie to the teaching world, however, as I taught undergraduate classes at Indiana University when I was completing my Masters of Fine Arts degree in creative writing. I taught Introduction to Creative Writing, Introduction to Poetry Writing, and Introduction to Composition to undergraduates. Before that I was an undergrad myself at the University of Pittsburgh, majoring in English Writing and minoring in Women's Studies. I enjoyed living in Bloomington, IN, but da 'Burgh will always be home.
Why do I want to be a teacher? I'll spare you all of the idealistic cliches that abound when this question is asked. I have to admit I'm quite jaded on some issues, but not on teaching. This is why I want to be a teacher:
