Lower School Learning Specialist
Know Your Pelicans
What do you teach? What is one of your favorite parts of the curriculum?
I’m a Learning Specialist in the Lower School and work with Third and Fourth graders, but happen to love working with all ages! One of my favorite parts of the curriculum and my role as a Learning Specialist is getting to not only work with my students in small groups and individually on things like reading, writing, and math, but to then help them transfer those skills into bigger projects and assignments that go on in the classroom like the Third Grade’s study of famous explorers or the Fourth Grade’s study of countries around the world.
Besides your subject, what’s something you hope to teach your students?
I think one of the most valuable lessons I hope to teach my students every day is that it’s okay to make mistakes and that we all have things that we’re really good at and things that we need to work on getting better at. I let them know that this can pertain to anything they pursue as they get older and that it just takes perseverance and a belief in themselves that they can do anything they set their minds to.
What is something that most Packer people wouldn’t know about you?
Something that most Packer people wouldn’t know about me is that I used to run competitively in college as a cross country runner and have run a few New York City marathons. My love of running has followed me even in my teaching career as I coached track at my former school for many years. I think the confidence you gain in participating in running or any sport can spill over into all that you do in school. I used to have parents of students say to me that one of the only reasons that their child was able to make it in that particular day was because they knew they had track practice or a track meet after school. Often they felt the most confident out there running on the track!
If you had an inspirational fridge magnet (and we’re not saying you would), what would it say and why?
Oh gosh, I love fridge magnets and had many at one point in my life! This is a tough one since there are a lot of great ones out there, but it’s a toss up between the lesson I like to teach my students, “Never ever, ever give up” by Churchill, or, as a music lover, “One good thing about music, when it hits you, you feel no pain” by the late, great Bob Marley. Music, especially live music, really is the key to all of life’s challenges!