The form essentially dictates that one starts these kinds of things with a definition. Pseudopod is a latinate term that, when translated literally, means “false foot”. It is well known to students of the biological sciences, as the name given to the cytoplasmic protrusions that the amoebae use to move through their environment, and surround their prey.
It is also personally significant as the name of my first pet hamster as a child, a side effect of having a biology teacher for a father. He died within a year of some sort of intestinal issue that involved a rather sudden gastro-intestinal hemorrhage. Such are the brief lives of terrarium-bound rodents.
As a website, Pseudopodia exists as a place to display the aspects of my thought process as it protrudes, amoeba-like, from my brain.
In my working life, I am an unintelligently designed, veteran public school teacher, primarily tasked with teaching advanced-level science, primarily to advanced-level children. In my private life, I am loud and obnoxious in my decidedly left-wing, thoroughly godless, pro-education, and scientifically-minded opinions. Here is where these two threads of my life meet for people to read about.
Why anyone would want to read these things is a bit beyond my understanding.
It should go without saying that the opinions, language and content of this site is wholly my own. Here is one of the few aspects of my public self that is not a function of the district I work for. While content about my job, and the things that my job causes me to ponder are certainly widely bandied about on the pages of this site, in no way, shape, or form should that be interpreted by you to mean that I am speaking for the district I work for, or any employee thereof anywhere herein. I’m not particularly trying to hide who I am, or where I work, but at the same time I’m not particularly interested in trumpeting it either. Neither are particularly remarkable. To that end, the names of students and colleagues are used with permission, changed as required, or more likely left out entirely. Materials from my working life that are posted on this site are nothing that could not be generated by any member of the interested public. Public education is blessedly low on trade secrets.
To any students that should stumble across this site in their internet tumblings: You are certainly welcome here, but this place isn’t here with you in mind. I heartily encourage you to find a bit of webspace where you can be yourselves, free from the increasing tide of institutional surveillance that characterizes the modern school, and separate from the public lens that seems increasingly thrust in your face. I also trust you will forgive my occasional swearing. It’s lazy, and it never has anything to do with you.
