Hello! My first name is Conrad, which is my religious name within my monastery community, St. Andrew Svorad Abbey. I also go by Father Conrad, as I am a Catholic priest. I am originally from Atlanta, Georgia, though I have lived in the Cleveland area for over 10 years. Besides praying, chanting, and singing, which are some of the principal duties of a monk, I love to read about British and Irish history, watch vintage television sitcoms, college football and European soccer, and try different types of cuisine. I enjoy foreign and independent movies, so the Cedar Lee Theater is one of my favorite places in the Cleveland area. I tend to follow politics and current global events with great interest. I am the business manager for my monastery, so I devote a great deal of my time to financial matters, which draws upon the almost 20 years I spent in pension plan accounting and administration before I entered consecrated religious life. I am excited this semester to continue to do observations in a high school classroom, though I am not yet certain where this will occur.

For me to take intellectual and creative risks in a course I must have confidence that the instructor will be available if I make a major mistake or fall behind my classmates. As an older man, compared to most of the other students at John Carroll University, I find myself frequently intimidated and overwhelmed by much of the technical language and technological applications with which many other students already have great familiarity. Much of the jargon within the education department also has taken some effort to thoroughly comprehend and incorporate into my vocabulary. I am a determined student, but I sometimes become easily frustrated when the pace of learning is not in sync with my expectations or capabilities.

As a preservice teacher of American history for high school students, I am always interested in ways to teach history in a fuller, more encompassing manner that includes different perspectives than those given by either the classroom textbook or the accepted consensus of most well-known historians. To that end, an essay that speaks to my interests for my future students’ learning is “A History in Which We Can All See Ourselves” by Holly Korbey (Korbey, H. (2018). A history in which we can all see ourselves. https://www.edutopia.org/article/history-which-we-can-all-see-ourselves). As the United States becomes more diverse ethnically, religiously, and in other ways, students need to see themselves and their families represented in the history lessons taught in American classrooms. Many wonderful tools exist to help teachers bring varying perspectives into the classroom and to encourage students to bring their own backgrounds, knowledge, and creativity into class discussions, group collaborations, and individual work. While including various perspectives may involve stark differences of opinion on contentious historical and contemporary subjects, students should learn how to state how their opinions with both conviction and factual evidence, as well as developing the ability to disagree with dignity and respect for those with differing viewpoints.

A question I have about this class is whether apps will need to be purchased or, when possible, picked up free of charge. I have no experience with using apps on my cell phone, so I would need some assistance to understand the process of acquiring apps for use in this class.