Current Class

Humanities/Ethnic Studies 2025-6

I spent my first year in a classroom at High Tech High Point Loma, in a 9th grade classroom in "the fishbowl." Fall semester, I was a student teacher learning from Chet Flaum, and we covered food from a multitude of viewpoints, all in the attempt to answer the questions, "who really decides what we eat?" Spring semester, Chet moved to 10th grade, and I worked with Juli Ruff, and the team project had to do with the idea of journeys: why we take them, why they are so often formative, and what we do to survive them. This was a year of drinking from the firehose for me, though joyfully.

Before this year, my only experiences doing anything close to the teaching I did this year would be 5 years of teaching English conversation in Japan in the 80s and early 90s, and instructing coworkers and clients in the use of various systems or technologies. Throughout my career in tech, however, the dream that I'd had since childhood of teaching English and Literature never left me. When a downturn in tech jobs, and a spike in layoffs, left me out of work for a year, my family supported my decision to finally make that dream come true. This first year in two classrooms - as a student at HTH GSE, and as a resident at HTHPL - has been the best adventure of my life. I wake up every morning grateful to get to come in and help students become better equipped, more justice-minded versions of themselves.