In the beautiful (though rather high-rent) city of Santa Barbara, CA, dwelt an idealistic, bookish, introverted English major, hankering for a meaningful career. "I shall be a High School Teacher," she said to herself. "And share my love of literature with teenagers!"
And so, having searched out a place where she could learn how to do this and do it well, she entered the UCSB Teacher Education Program, known both for its rigor and its highly skilled graduates.
Upon her entry, she found herself taken through a series of rooms where portions of her brain were removed (mostly the ones responsible for sanity), and replaced with bits of Paulo Freire, Lisa Delpit, Sheridan Blau, grade spreadsheets, seating charts, red pens, Bloom's Taxonomy, multi-tasking strategies, and SDAIE.
Near the end of the spring semester, she was taken to the top of Phelps Hall, where, like Frankenstein's creature, she was hit by lightning---repeatedly.
That June, she emerged from TEP with a teaching credential, half a master's degree, and a splitting headache. But, most importantly, she was able to think like a teacher! And for the rest of her life, she seldom read a novel without creating a lesson plan in her head, whether she was actually teaching that year or not.
Two years later, she returned to have the brain implants upgraded, and emerged with her Master of Education degree completed, and perhaps with a little less of her remaining sanity.
The nature of her training was such that she also became quite fidgety, and so she started a blog, to give her fingers one more thing to type.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how the Crazy Schoolmarm came into being.
"I don't suffer from insanity! I enjoy every minute of it!"
--Anonymous
The social, cultural, spiritual, political, academic, and literary rantings of a slightly strange Catholic English teacher.
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