pROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
Now in my twenty-eighth year of teaching, I began working with New Trier freshmen at the Northfield Campus when it re-opened in 2001. While there I taught all levels and courses (save the co-taught 2 level course) and also guided five boys advisory groups in their transition to our Winnetka Campus. Since moving there myself in 2006, I have taught: American Studies (9 and 4 levels), Individual in Conflict, Myth and Mind, Senior Writers Seminar (9 and 4 levels), American Literature (3 level), and Sophomore English (2 and 3 level). I graduated my most recent advisory group in June of 2018, my fourth three-year group to graduate from New Trier. After commuting for two years, I am now full time at Northfield Campus again, and currently teach both two and three level freshmen English.
At New Trier I have served on curricular and association committees too-numerous to name, sponsored the Northfield Trevia, assisted the production of the New Trier News and the satirical Near-True News, and am currently the sponsor of our literary magazine, Logos. I have been active in our local union, and have served as the NTHS Education Association Senate President. I am currently the co-chair of the Professional Agreement Committee, the contract negotiation team for our association. Prior to moving to Chicago's North Shore, I taught at Thornridge High School in Dolton. I began my career there in 1994, where I taught English to grades 9 through 11 and desktop publishing to grades 11 and 12.
Though primarily an English teacher, I do hold a MA in Education Administration and a type 75 certificate from Governors State University in Illinois.
Education & tEACHING PHILOSOPHY
Jiddu Krishnamurti as a young man, cir. 1920. He was born in British India in 1895. He and his younger brother were associated with the Theosophical Society until 1925, when the later's death ultimately led to Krishnamurti's renunciation of the group.
Raised in Chicago's South Suburbs, I graduated from Knox College in Galesburg, IL with my BA in English/Writing Poetry. After working a brief time as an on-site facilities manager for Merrill Corporation (a Chicago printing company), I began my teaching at Thornridge High School in Dolton, a South Suburb of Chicago. Early on, a good friend shared a copy of Jiddu Krishnamurti's Education & the Significance of Life. Within this slender collection of transcribed lectures, Krishnamurti advocates that we reject an institutionalized understanding of ourselves and our world.
Krishnamurti's approach to an examined life has influenced me as a teacher. I ask students to explore the questions they themselves ask to gain a deeper knowledge and understanding of self, hopefully one free from the institutionalized influence of dogma.
I believe in a whole-child approach to education, believe that separating content from student is to perform a disservice to both. Literature and written expression can take us places far beyond where we have ever been, but can also help us more deeply understand our relationship(s) and ourselves. At a very early age, I was instructed in the Great Books Foundation approach to learning, and I see stories as an important tool in helping us discover our place in our community and the larger world. Now in my third decade of teaching , I increasingly see education as a key to long-lasting peace between people and nations.
