To the parents (and precocious children who like to read my notices to their parents…):
Passion for teaching:
I’ve had the good fortune to work in elementary schools all over the US and Latin America, which means I’ve spent significant time surrounded by young, energetic, and positive students and the teachers that love and nurture them. Although no two countries (or states or districts even) agree on what or how to teach, I know that the more global my perspective as a teacher, the greater my ability to instill curiosity about the world in my students and inspire them to one day go see it for themselves! As adults who aren’t in school anymore, we sometimes forget that we can still be learning all the time. I look forward to sharing some of that learning here on this blog and hope you enjoy the adventures along with me!
Passion for travel
Traveling is a passion for constantly meeting people with radically different life experiences than my own and for together exploring new places and new ways of looking at the world. It’s sharing in other people’s passions—from surfing to dominoes—and engaging in one of my own wherever I go: working with children. Traveling is sitting down to dinner my first night in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala with two girls I met on the bus and recognizing across the same large table a friend I’d made in Nicaragua over a year before. It is our joyful reunion and later taking a 32-hour bus ride together across 4 countries to meet other traveler friends. Traveling is finding family no matter where I am—a stranger becomes a cooking partner, a hitchhiking buddy, a lifelong friend. “Don’t talk to strangers!” we tell our children, but when I travel it is strangers who keep me safe, strangers who walk me where I’m going when I’m lost, strangers who open their houses to me for dinner, for a day, for a month, who tell me, “this is your home.”
Where I’ve taught
Originally from Boston, I’ve worked with students in many capacities over the last 18 years. Some of my favorites include: after school and summer camp at the East End House and programming for children at Hildebrand Family Self-Help Center, both in Cambridge, MA, many classrooms in West and North Philadelphia, Schools in Quito, Ecuador and Havana, Cuba.
After going back to grad school in 2009 for my teaching credential, I have taught 2nd grade Spanish Immersion at Antonia Pantoja Charter School and Montessori Education 1st-5th at the San Francisco Public Montessori School.
Where I went to school (a lot of school!)
Old South Preschool, Boston MA
Kingsley Montessori School, Boston (K)
The Learning Project Elementary School, Boston (1st-6th)
The Winsor School, Boston (7th-12th)
University of Pennsylvania, B.A. in Urban Studies (minors: Urban Education, Creative Writing); M.S.Ed Elementary Education
Education Expedition Institute, M.S. Environmental Education*
St. Mary’s College of CA, Montessori 6-12 credential (in progress: M.A. Montessori Education)
* Two years of backpacking, camping, and studying in the woods, deserts, and mountains of the US, Canada, and Mexico. Best grad school ever!
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