Teacher Bio

In school I was the kid still finishing the test while others played at recess. I never dreamed of teaching. Then I found myself in the JET program, an exchange program for college graduates, teaching English in Japanese public schools. Following the JET program, I worked in Tokyo as a warehouse manager for 5 years and realized I felt most most suited for teaching. In 2015, I completed my teaching degree in English and then expanded my endorsements to History, Social Studies, and Computer Science. I landed a job at Skyview Middle School in 2016 studying project based learning under Jim Wilkowski in the history department. I also began receiving mentoring from my previous college professor, Karen Mikolasy on building relationships with students and parents. In 2018 I joined Inglemoor High School. 

My Philosophy on Education:

As we move further into the digital age, challenges with unlimited information, sustainability, and automation place importance on higher level thinking skills, such as analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. At the same time, issues of inequality and inclusiveness have always been a challenge in America’s pursuit of a more perfect union. Overshadowing all this, the worst pandemic since 1918 and the biggest social justice movement since the 1960s came to the forefront.  

World History’s overarching question is: What does it mean to be a 21st century citizen? This is meant for students to think about the context of the world they inherit in hopes of stimulating how they want to shape the world for the future.

Outside of teaching, I invest my time with self-education and exercise. With self-education, I enjoy local lectures, online lectures, and reading books. If I had to choose a favorite fiction book it would be Shogun by James Clavell. It's a tale of an English ship captain arriving in 17th century Japan to make his way in a foreign culture. For exercise, I enjoy running and biking. My favorite bike ride is King's Ridge in Sonoma County, California. The bike ride takes you from old growth forest, to farms with sweeping mountain views, concluding with a final decent to the beautiful California coast.