I have the honor of being the sysadmin and tech teacher at St. Mary's Parish School in Westville, IL: www.smswestvile.k12.il.us. As part of an assignment (namely, "Write something about yourself for the website"), I recently posted this. It is quite a bit different from the other teachers' entries, and THAT was my goal. (Notice that I didn't mention how long I have taught or how many dogs I own.)
Mrs. Matthews's Bio
Mrs. Matthews may seem a little weird, but she's really just a geek. Note that geeks are altogether different from nerds. Her students may venture to disagree about Mrs. Matthews summarily excluding herself from the Nerd Arena, but they would be incorrect. Geeks love computer technology and other electronics. Nerds lack social graces. Geeks and nerds are not mutually exclusive, and if you ask Mrs. Matthews, she'll draw you a Venn Diagram.
A long time ago, far far away (is Chicagoland far away?), Mrs. Matthews cut her teeth on some piece of junk Texas Instruments computer that ended up going back to the store on December 29th because it didn't work very well. The technology lying around continued to improve, and Mrs. Matthews used what was available. This included Apple IIes at St. Pet's (do you know what saint that is short for?) and the dual-floppy machines at Mrs. Matthews's beloved castle-on-the-hill high school. Mrs. Matthews was not into computers growing up, but she does indeed have fond memories of her Commodore 64, which was only a tiny bit less beloved than the above mentioned high school.
Believe it or not, back in the day before Mrs. Matthews was Mrs. Matthews (fka Miss Farrell), she was was about a 13% on the Geek-o-meter. Mrs. Matthews was not interested in touching the inside of a computer; she kept her tech-related interests to IRC chat rooms and NXT machines in the basement of the English building at U of I. (Truth be told, back in the "Miss Farrell" days, Mrs. Matthews was a little trepidacious about technology. Can you relate?)
It was not until later that Mrs. Matthews discovered a strange knack for technology. It all happened very quicky: Mrs. Matthews had a dear friend (whose name-saint was beheaded - guess the saint) who put in a good word for her at a Fortune 500 company in the engineering department. Miss Farrell got the job (where, incidentally, everyone in that corporation called each other by their first names), and quickly learned her way around large agricultural machinery. At that company, Mrs. Matthews trained farmers on to use agricultural software, the Internet, and computers in general. She designed databases, did tech support, wrote specs for software engineers, reviewed a lot of boring contracts, and ran a GIS mapping computer lab.
Then Mrs. Matthews, who then, be reminded, was still Miss Farrell, got bored and decided it was time to go back to The Cornfield to get a Masters degree in Math, Science and Technology Education. Instead, she got a few masters credits and a husband, last name Matthews, also a geek. Mr. Matthews is a computer genius who has taught Mrs. Matthews at least 30% of what she knows today. Together, Mr. and Mrs. Matthews manage several computer systems (and a farm) in central Illinois.
Mr. and Mrs. Matthews have two geeks-in-training, Sam and Mac. They enjoy dinosaur computer games. Mrs. Matthews is happy to report that she can still run faster than both of them, but that will change very soon.
On a serious note, Mrs. Matthews is certified to teach Math, Chemistry, and Physical Science. She has taught Mathematics courses for Danville Area Community College for the last 5 years and loves Blaise Pascal. Teaching religion has been Mrs. Matthews's favourite position, and she hopes her former religion students will continue to pursue their faith with intense joy and fervor.
Mrs. Matthews is a firm believer that we all have the same job on this earth: To pursue TRUTH. Whether it's truth in theology, history, grammar, mathematics, or computers, we learn more about God as we open ourselves to the order and intricacies of His Creation. That's why school is important!
(PS When Mr. Matthews read this, he scoffed and said, "Yeah, more like 130%!")
Mrs. Matthews can be reached at kari@smswestville.k12.il.us.
