My students always had trouble pronouncing my name even after I would break it down for them Blue Men Gar Ten (Blumengarten). And inevitably they always got it mixed up with their other teachers who also had B surnames. Whenever a student called me by another teacher’s name I would address that student with another name. Inevitably the student would become upset and then I would state that I am not Mr. ….. Their response would then be “Oh!”
After teaching in the classroom, grades 6-9 (Social Studies, Language Arts, Science, Math, Bilingual Reading, Health, Special Ed, Computers….Yes, I was a New York City teacher!) for 20 years my principal approached me and asked me to take over the school library. I then became “Library Man.” I did not mind the students calling me that name.
At that time I was contributing websites to Walter McKenzie for his Surfaquarium monthly newsletter topics. He wrote the following:
“Thanks to ..Jerry Blumengarten (our very own cutting edge cybrarian) for submitting recommendations for this week’s issue! “October 28, 2000
(Walter McKenzie – Surfaquarium Consulting – Innovative staff development – Innovation Teaching)
After reading this I got the idea to change from Library Man to Cybrary Man!
21 comments ↓
Jerry I love your story! You were a renaissance man teaching all of those subjects. I am sure your enthusiasm and love and respect for your students always showed through!
Wonder what your students would have done with my name? I’m sure I would have been Mrs. G! Or maybe library lady! That would be ok too!
The best part of teaching all those subjects was the fact I never got bored doing the same thing year in year out. The culmination of my career as the teacher-librarian enabled me to serve all those subject areas especially doing cooperative learning projects.
Good luck on your site! Looks great so far! I look forward to reading your posts.
Erin Klein
http://www.kleinspiration.com
Thank you. I thought it was about time to join the blogging world.
Intreguing post, it is always great to hear stories of how people get their Nick names or choose their cyber tags. I have often done the same when students can’t remember my name and you’d think mine was easy – in comparison.
Looking forward to learning more about you.
I have been intrigued with onomastics (the study of names) thanks to my mother.
Welcome! I look forward to reading more!
Thank you. I believe in being succinct and will try to be on my posts.
Welcome to our Blogger’s Universe Jerry. I will look forward to reading your posts and know that they will be as informative and helpful as your other work has been.
Thank you. I am just getting my feet wet.
Hi Jerry,
Your online presence and influence is amazing. I like the superhero-esque aspect of your nickname because it reflects how much you help teachers find awesome resources. Your helping ethos of zooming in through cyberspace to help teachers find resources and inspiration makes for the ideal librarian-superhero of the 21st century except that you are also a real person! Reading this post felt like reading the backstory to Spiderman
More power to you Cybraryman!
Appreciatively,
Ingrid
Wow! Maybe I should have you ghost write my blog posts. I am far from a super hero! Thank you for your kind words that I sincerely appreciate.
Thank you. I loved what you wrote and should have you do my posts. My six/almost seven year old grandson was thrilled when he found out I was Cybrary Man. I guess he places me among his favorite super heroes.
It was bound to happen – @Cybraryman is now a blogger. Congratulations, Jerry, and welcome to the blogosphere. I look forward to learning from you through your blogging too. Thanks for all that you share.
Thanks Paula. It was bound to happen even though most of my time is spent working on my website.
Thank you Paula. I appreciate the kind words especially coming from someone I really admire.
Jerry
It’s about time that you started blogging. You possess a wealth of knowledge to be shared with others. Thanks for joining our Blogging community.
Very excited to see that you started a blog! Your website has been such a great resource for me, I’m looking forward to learning more from you.
Cheers,
Jordan
@jrwolfe
Thank you for your kind words. I hope to share many of my experiences.
I love following your tweets and I enjoy your blog, too. One minor complaint: your replies aren’t threaded to the post to which u are responding. Can u fix that?
Hopefully this will work. I appreciate your comments. I still have a lot to learn after all these years.
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