Lucas+Elbaum

=Me: =

I'm Luke and I am in my next to last semester of the MAT program and certifying in secondary social studies. As for my background and involvement in education, I had my first taste of teaching while volunteering with the Greater Pittsburgh Literacy Counsel tutoring ESL classes to adult learners. I'd often considered teaching to be a field that I'd like to be involved in, so when I decided I wanted to move to South America I began looking for ways to try it out. I eventually found a school in rural Ecuador that was looking for teachers to volunteer, and so I ended up spending a year teaching English, social studies, art, or whatever else was needed at the moment. It was a great way for me to try my hand at getting up and teaching everyday, as well as teach different age groups (I taught K-8th grades). I also got to come up with all my own lessons, which was a huge challenge as a first-time teacher, but was also a really valuable learning experience. After this experience, I felt more confident pursuing teaching as a career and enrolled here at Chatham when I came back to Pittsburgh.



Recently, I started a long-term substituting job assistant-teaching Kindergarten (despite the fact that Im certifying at the secondary level). When I'm not doing that, I work as a paralegal with an immigration attorney and as a barista at a local coffee shop.

= My Philosophy: =

The essential reason that I am becoming involved in education is that I view education to be one of the most fundamental aspects of personal and social development. I feel that the greatest amount of social strife in the world occurs due to ignorance or mis-education, for it becomes much more difficult to oppress a literate, well educated mass of people. In the modern world, true democracy cannot exist unless we are all literate and knowledgeable. I don't believe that we have yet to achieve that in the U.S., which is perhaps the most underlying problem in our country which impedes progress and true, high functioning democracy. The same can be said for most developing countries. To me, it is important to be involved in something, even at a small level, that exerts a positive force into the world. Teaching and education are, to me, among the highest forms of creating positive change.

= The Future... =

I hope to fill the future being involved with education in one capacity or another, for now, teaching, but perhaps move on to administration or policy work. I would also like to teach again outside of the U.S. and continue to travel as much as possible. Beyond that, who knows! I'm as interested to find out as the rest of us.

= My Podcast: =

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