Shanghai - Anshan Experimental School

Originally from Wisconsin, I started teaching in Boston in 2000. I have been a mentor and cooperating teacher for the past six years. I believe new teachers and student teachers need support early on in their career, especially since fifty percent of our colleagues leave the profession within their first five years. I belong to several committees at school and am the lead history teacher, all in hopes of continuing to support my fellow teachers and the students we serve.

My passion, of course, is in working directly with my students during and after school. In the past I coached the boys’ varsity volleyball team, participated in student government system-wide, started an adventure club, and ran the school’s history club, where five of my members were able to travel with me to the 2008 inauguration in D.C. And last year I focused on helping students apply for travel opportunities to Peru and Egypt. I was able to teach English abroad two years ago in the Northeastern part of Germany and travel to China and Thailand this past summer. So I feel that is why I am so eager to get as many of my students into programs that offer them the chance to travel.

This year I’m teaching the Civics for Boston Youth Course and have combined my love for travel with my strong belief in activism and organizing in our communities, both local and globally. This year I hope to broaden my students’ knowledge of what it means to be civically engaged and how to make their voice, and the voices around them, heard.