In the words of the famous poet Mr. Shawn Carter, aka Jay-Z, please allow me to reintroduce myself. My name is The Social Studies Whisperer. Still. Trust me I get it if you just said to yourself “Who?!?” Well, that’s my entrepreneurial alter-ego. My name is Andrea Runnels and I’m pretty easy to find and super active on the socials but finding me here? Not so easy.
This website has been collecting digital dust. It’s an idea gathering ghost town with tumble weeds blowing through. I love writing. I love sharing my ideas. I have millions of them! Life has gotten in the way of me writing as I’ve had a serious evolution as a human over the past decade. I’d like the site to reflect who I am now instead of being a faux version of my former self. When I originally was planning to launch this blog in 2015/2016 and grow my Teachers Pay Teachers store I was married, teaching elementary, living in Georgia, and caught up trying to be a fake Pinterest perfect teacher. See below.
Could we get into alllll the things that have gone on over the past decade? Sure! But we won’t. This isn’t that kind of post. This is a “I’m pivoting my posts and content from “a to b” kind of post. The Pinterest perfect person was doing things for the ‘gram as well. My earlier posts were about elementary teacher happenings with ideas for making teaching Social Studies more engaging along with some other fun/creative things I’d done. Those posts have some great ideas and probably some broken links but I’m not in the traditional K-12 classroom anymore. I’m not currently teaching Social Studies (other than sharing Today in History content for the public at large) and I won’t post pictures from 2018 pretending they’re from 2025. I won’t get into that journey because as mentioned this isn’t that kind of post. That could be a short story.
I have shifted to share some “History Destination” posts and will continue to do so. I’d like to post more often than once every 2-3 years. I’d like to post regularly whether it’s a poem, about a history museum, about an event, etc., my musings on life, or what I’m up to professionally these days. I have made the change to work in Adult Education. Never saw that one coming! I started as an Adjunct Instructor in late 2019/early 2020 and got a full time job as Adult Secondary Education Specialist in the fall of 2022.
I do teach a starter level college class and sub for High School Equivalency classes (blanket term used to cover those studying for the GED or HiSET exams in our program) occasionally. The rest of the time I get to be a cheerleader for students of all ages (16 and beyond) who are studying for their GED exams or finishing their remaining credits from high school through our Adult High School program. I work at a community college and love encouraging our students to enroll in curriculum classes at the school as well!
There’s a lot of support on the world wide web for traditional college students starting at a 4 year university. Articles or blog posts for community college students??? Forget it! I’d love to change that! It’s been my pleasure to teach that college success strategies class multiple times. Expect that content!
Have you ever tried to teach a GED class? Well be prepared for workbooks, upon workbooks, stacked on top of other workbooks! BORING! I had to modify resources designed for elementary students when I filled in for a class for a few months! I was drawing things out on construction paper! I’ll also be sharing ideas that people can use themselves or instructors can use. Instructors shouldn’t have to make stuff up on the fly! See below.
I’m excited about this change and would be happy to take requests for resources! I will start with some blog posts first:).
