Teaching With Magic Elise Cedeno

Hello all, and THANK YOU for your unwavering support of the Teaching With Magic Project! I am so pleased to introduce the season one finale, a panel discussion with several friends of the Podcast who share their perspectives on the current state of teaching. We talk about the joys and the hardships of teaching and teaching fantasy, and we talk about some of the images and tropes that have contributed to some of the difficulties that teachers face. How much do pop culture, the media, and their depictions of teachers influence how real-world teachers are treated? Listen up, and don't forget to comment with your thoughts and ideas!



Topics:


Nick's first year of teaching (07:00),
Anachronistic teaching in the realm of King Arthur (18:00),
Our favorite teachers in pop culture and fantasy (32:34)
Methods and practices we emulate from our favorite teachers (58:30),
Common teacher tropes in the media; are they helpful or harmful? (1:25:00)

Panel biographies:

Nick Polk: Nick currently serves as the Production Editor for Mallorn, the academic journal of The Tolkien Society. He is a high school English teacher and has written various articles about Tolkien, adaptation, pop culture, and theology. He co-hosts the ⁠Tolkien Heads podcast⁠ with Tripp Fuller from Homebrewed Christianity and is the creator of the ⁠Tolkien Pop! Substack⁠ where he writes on the various intersections of Tolkien and pop culture. When he is not reading something Tolkien-related, Nick enjoys brewing and drinking coffee, listening to punk music, and watching the latest television series with his wife Kelly.

Dr. Joe Torres: ⁠Joe Torres⁠ is a mathematician and a teacher originally from Louisiana but now living and working in Michigan. In 2011, he earned his BS in Math from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. After teaching high school math for three years, he returned to school at Texas A&M University, where he earned his PhD in Math in 2020. Since then, he taught math at a community college on the Texas Gulf Coast for 2 years and now teaches at a small classical high school in the Catholic tradition in South Central Michigan. During this time, he earned his Graduate Diploma in Language and Literature focusing on Classical, Medieval, and Renaissance Literature from Signum University and is now working on an MA in Philosophy focusing on Christian Wisdom at Holy Apostles College and Seminary. Joe loves reading, learning, and discussing math, literature, philosophy, and theology with friends and is a proud patron of the Prancing Pony Podcast – the best podcast this side of Bree.

⁠Becca⁠ is a community college English composition and literature instructor in southeastern Oklahoma and is currently a Ph.D. student working in Tolkien studies at the University of Swansea and the University of Central Oklahoma. Outside of academics, she serves as Barliman on the Prancing Pony Podcast, which truly is the best podcast this side of Bree. She is notorious for her ability to pun anything and her students have expressed some concern about the amount of coffee and tea she drinks. Becca can talk fantasy literature all day, every day, and loves finding ways to incorporate this love into her teaching.

⁠Jordan Rannells⁠ is an audio engineer, composer, and teacher from Ottawa, Ontario. Jordan has spent several years studying sound engineering, music, and teaching from college and seminars in Nashville with Victor Wooten and other renowned teachers and musicians. He has taught Recording Technology and Sound Design in Ottawa over the past few years and is currently spending his time creating full audio soundscapes for fantasy and sci-fi books, designing sound FX, and writing original scores to create a ‘movie in your ears’.

And don't forget to support Teaching with Magic by visiting our ⁠website⁠, ⁠Patreon⁠, and ⁠Ko-Fi⁠ pages!



We'll be back in a few months with season 2.


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Today's episode is all about podcasting! How do podcasting and audio make learning accessible? What do podcasts, streaming, and J.R.R. Tolkien have in common? Learn the answers to these questions and more as Teaching with Magic discusses the beginnings of Signum University, the Mythgard Institute, and the Tolkien Professor with Signum University President Dr. Corey Olsen!

Dr. Corey Olsen is the President of Signum University and Mythgard Institute. In addition to teaching classes on J.R.R. Tolkien, Chaucer, and modern fantasy literature for Signum, Dr. Olsen has extended the concept of the digital classroom to include non-traditional outlets. Through the Mythgard Academy, he offers free weekly lectures on works of speculative fiction chosen by Signum University supporters, and he has embraced the “new literature” of cinema and video game adaptations through interactive programs such as The Silmarillion Film Project and in-game discussions of Lord of the Rings Online.

On his teaching website, The Tolkien Professor, Dr. Olsen brings his scholarship on Tolkien to the public, seeking to engage a wide and diverse audience in serious intellectual and literary conversation. His website features a series of detailed lectures on The Hobbit and recordings of the weekly meetings of the Silmarillion Seminar, which worked its way through the Silmarillion chapter by chapter, as well as more informal Q&A sessions with listeners. His book Exploring J.R.R. Tolkien’s "The Hobbit" was published by Houghton Mifflin in September 2012.



Don't forget: you can visit Teaching With Magic at http://teachingwithmagic.blog for more updates, and you can support Teaching with Magic on Patreon and Kofi.



Just one more episode to go before the Season ends!


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It's a New Year, which means that we have some new updates! This episode is an announcement and a call to action- we have lots of fun projects ahead of us, but we need your help to achieve them!



First: The Teaching With Magic Discord is open to listeners. To join, click this link. If it expires, send us an email at contact@teachingwithmagic.blog for a new link!



Second: We need your help! There are lots of projects in store, but they cost time and money. Teaching With Magic is available on Patreon and Ko-Fi, and you are welcome to donate any dollar amount you choose. Thank you!



And finally, you can participate by checking for updates on the blog, leaving us a rating, a review, a comment, or even a voice message! Thank you for all that you do!


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Meet Teacher with Magic Dr. Lana Whited! Lana edited the first collection of essays on the Harry Potter series, The Ivory Tower and Harry Potter (Missouri, 2002), as well as Critical Insights series volumes on the Harry Potter novels (2015, with M. Katherine Grimes) and the Hunger Games trilogy (2016). Dr. Whited is the director of the Boone Honors Program and professor of English at Ferrum College in Virginia and earned degrees at Emory & Henry College (BA), College of William & Mary (MA), Hollins (MA), and UNC Greensboro (Ph.D.). She has received the Exemplary Teaching Award from the Council of Higher Education of the United Methodist Church and was a 2016 nominee for the State Council of Higher Education of Virginia’s Outstanding Faculty Awards. Her most recent book is Murder, in Fact: Death and Disillusionment in the American True Crime Novel (McFarland, 2020).



Lana's sequel to The Ivory Tower, Harry Potter and Beyond is due to release on December 22nd, 2023. You can preorder a copy here.



Lana Whited also wrote "Here Be Dragons and Phoenixes: A Thematic Direction for the Fantastic Beasts series" in Potterversity: Essays Exploring the World of Harry Potter.


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Beowulf has been on the shelves and graced many a high school and university English syllabus... but why is it taught, and why should we continue to teach it? This episode features Dr. Larry Swain, coeditor of the upcoming "Teaching Beowulf: Practical Approaches" from Medieval Institute Publications. As any true teacher would, Larry turned the questions and concerns that his students raised and turned them into a helpful resource.

And as always, Teaching with Magic includes the resources and reading list discussed in the episode. You can go to our Bookshop.org link here, or go to the individual links below:

Teaching Beowulf: Practical Approaches, coedited by Dr. Aaron Hofstetter and Dr. Larry Swain
Roy Liuzza Translation
Richard Scott Nokes: Beowulf in Comic Books and Graphic Novels
Gareth Hinds' edition
Bea Wolf by Zach Weinersmith

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This episode is the quick and dirty minilesson on the Science of Reading, the Science of Reading Movement, and how it relates to fantasy and Tolkien studies. What do brain science, biology, and Gandalf all have in common? Find out on this episode!

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