Q: How long have you been a teacher? A teacher at Wachusett?
A: 12 years as a teacher at Wachusett
Q: Who/what inspired you to become a teacher?
A: My brother and sister are both teachers, so I suppose it’s in my blood.
Q: Are you involved in any other additional activities at the school or in the community?
A: Yes, Agricultural club, Robotics club, Makerspace, as part of the partnership program department. In the past, I did Wilderness club, stage crew director.
I have also written grants for over 300,000 thousand dollars and will be bringing the Invitation Pathway Program in advanced manufacturing to the district over the next five years.
Q:What is your favorite topic to teach?
A: Makerspace but I’m really excited to bring in Architecture; I’m slowly experimenting with bringing it in.
Q: What’s your least favorite thing about being a teacher?
A: Not having enough time in class! The limitation of a 50 minute class period is tough.
Q: What is the most important life lesson you teach? Or what piece of advice would you give to your students?
A: Live in the now and lightly plan for the future.
Q:What’s one thing you would tell new teachers or want them to know?
A: Always keep in mind that we are here for the students.
Q: What do you think is an important thing for all teachers to keep in mind?
A: We are all here for the same reason, teaching students even if our classrooms look completely different, whether it’s lecturing or hands-on. There’s a lot of judgment between teaching styles.
Q: What do you think makes you a good teacher?
A: My life experience, I changed careers. I was an engineer then I became a teacher.
Q: What is your funniest teaching story?
A: My brother started teaching four years earlier than I did. I was working as a civil engineer in the private sector and I would take the morning off from work on April 1st to trick the students in my brother’s classes.
I would come into the school building, dressed the same as him. I would hide in his prep room. He would start teaching and say he wanted to shave his facial hair (he had a beard at the time), which is very weird for kids to hear. He would go into the prep room, make some noise and run the water in his sink, and I would pop out a minute later and act as if nothing happened and keep teaching (I was clean shaven), we would do this back & forth for a few years.
Now our running joke is that we were the first human clones in the world. We have a whole story about how the medical field was experimenting with cloning animals and that we are the first humans cloned. It’s hilarious, and we always tell students we are JOKING!
Q: What is a random fact about you that would surprise most students?
A: I have a lot of hobbies. I have jumped out of airplanes, I keep honeybees, and chickens. I have traveled all over 35+ countries. I backpacked through Asia alone.
