It's a-me, the new author!

Hello, hello chickadees! As Kait has already said, I'm Lauren - we went to school together, etc. etc. For the past two years, I've worked at a private school in the Midwest that was, frankly, a pretty interesting location. The school was run by and built on a college campus. Each of the classrooms was outfitted with an observation booth to allow the Education students to observe the children and teachers, thus learning about how classrooms operate. While I wasn't one of the teachers, I was an aide and, over the course of two years, worked in every classroom: three preschool classrooms, one multiage K-5 classroom.

Most of my stories come from the K-5 class or from the preschool room I was stationed in during my last four months working at the school. Unlike the other classrooms, which were full-day 8:00-3:00 classes, this preschool room was two separate classes: one in the morning for 2-3 year-olds, one in the afternoon for 4-5 year-olds who just weren't quite ready for Kindergarten.

Anyway, enough of that. Kait pointed out that neither of us set out to work with children, and that's true. In college, I majored in English with the goal of becoming a full-time writer. This is still my ultimate goal, but in the meantime, I sure like having a regular paycheck. In fact, while at school, I distinctly remember disliking the Education majors, because it seemed like quite a few of them were, well, really dumb. (Obviously not all Education majors are like this, but at my school? Hell yes, they were.)

Regardless, I ended up working with kids, and I'm even planning on pursuing teacher certification when I move down to Texas in a week or so. It's a nice life, I enjoy the sense of helping kids learn about the world in which they live, and really? It's an awesome feeling when a kid comes up to you to tell you that you're their favorite teacher.

While quite a few of the stories I have to share are critical of the US Education system, there are many that aren't. People need to know what it's like for children inside schools--the good and the bad.

That being said, since I did work in one location for two years and bonded with many of the kids and their parents, I won't be using any real names in my stories, whether for the kids, the college students, or the administration. If ever a name is mentioned, it will be fake.

So, that's enough of an introduction, I think. I'll be posting again soon with stories about pretty much everything you can imagine, including magic and dragons. Oh yes. :) For now, signing out.

-Lauren