My favorite spaces to inhabit as a teacher are those where my students and I are learning together: side by side in a writing conference, on the trail in Pinnacles National Park, conquering our fears in a pitch dark cave in Yosemite valley, or laughing through a history game while discovering how much we really know.
I started teaching when I was in the fourth grade. My neighbor, Mrs. Lunblad, gave me a box full of her extra dittos meant for second graders. I loved that box of math problem sets, fill-in-the-blank reading exercises, and spelling sheets. I used them when my friends and I would play school. I taught macramé classes to kids in my grandfather’s neighborhood when I went to Ludington, Michigan the summer after sixth grade. Both my parents were teachers, so I guess it was in my blood.
When given the choice of teaching a combined 4th/5th or as the first SFS Middle School teacher, I chose the latter, excited to help create a new program. I chose well in 1985 and have loved teaching in this community ever since.
