About Me

I am in my second year of teaching high school English, though I taught ESL K-8 for a year beforehand. I received my Master’s in Education in August 2009. I will pursue my doctorate later – when my children are bigger. I have been married for six years and have two phenomenal preschoolers.

I smile. A lot. I strive to respect people at all times. I also love discussing (yeah, you could call it arguing) because it allows me to better understand my own ideas and whether or not they are worth defending. Sometimes they are not. I think being able to change one’s mind is a critical skill that is less valued than it should be.

My philosophy of education is that it should be relatively authentic, it should be as student centered as is appropriate for material but still beneficial to students, and that we should have high expectations to the extent that students are appropriately challenged. I hope you can see that I have a strong desire for balance and am not a bandwagon rider.

My choice of English is not entirely typical. I love math and philosophy and religion and politics and more. How does this translate to my passion for teaching English classes? Through reading we are exposed to a multitude of voices and ideas that hopefully differ from our own. These allow us to make insights about ourselves and the world around us by viewing the world through these other lenses. Perspective.

Through writing and reflecting we work through logic and how we interpret and perceive these ideas and worlds. Through dialogue with our peers, we not only increase our exposure but we also learn how to respectfully discuss, clarify, and deliberate on ideas. If we could all do this, imagine what improvements could be made.

Additionally, I should note that I love curriculum. The layers of ideas, voices, classic, new, reading, writing, and then carefully adding the skills, practice…….Beautiful.