Ms. Sarah Beebe

When Ms. Beebe walks in, her radiant presence immediately brightens the room. As everyone settles and gets ready, she takes her seat. Everybody introduces themselves: Evan is the interviewer, Ethan is taking video, Shira is taking pictures, and Eden is taking notes.

The first question Evan asks is, “Do you work or collaborate with any other teachers in the school?” As everyone in the room starts to take notes, Ms. Beebe talks about how she works often with Mr. Steve Files, Ms. Mary Catherine Coleman, Ms. Annette Lesak and Mr. Seth Bacon. The interview is going smoothly at this point, as everybody has settled in and gotten comfortable. Evan asks about Ms. Beebe's working in the computer lab, as he remembers her doing that when he was in lower grades. Ms. Beebe talks about how, yes, she works in the computer lab, but now she is trying to incorporate more technology in and out of classrooms. "[Learning in the computer lab] is different than it was when you did it," she explains. "Children these days don't need to be taught how to log into computers; they have already been exposed to technology before. The computer lab is now more of a group space, for projects and brainstorming."

Since her job involves working with technology, Ms. Beebe tries to limit time spent on her devices, although she says there is "so much peer pressure to answer emails." She tries to not use her phone or electronic devices at home in order to have more time with her kids and family.

Ms. Beebe loves her job and has many favorite parts. Even though the school WiFi plays a big part in her job, when it goes down, Ms. Beebe uses the interruption as a teaching experience to show students and teachers they can still work with pen and paper. She loves to tie technology and various subjects together, such as poetry, creating a good habitat for animals with research, and many more. As a tech teacher, she has created many websites and expressed her love for databases like PebbleGo. She likes to use her knowledge to show teachers more technology they can use to help teach their subjects.

Ms. Beebe told us she is learning to let her students struggle and fail in order to learn. She has done many projects with students, but a project with the first graders was one of her favorites. She assigned the first graders to show a poem with a robot. In the beginning, two students said, "Ms. Beebe, I can't do it!" Ms. Beebe expressed her confidence in the students, though it was also difficult for her to be patient with the process, watching students trying to figure out how to problem-solve on their own. For the next 40 minutes, the students sat there working, and by the last five minutes, they had the best idea. They were on fire!

"What is your favorite grade to teach?" Evan interjects.

"Hmmm," Ms. Beebe replies, "that's a hard one." For someone who spends her days with children of all different ages, it must be almost impossible to choose. Eventually, Ms. Beebe decides on the younger children, not picking any specific grades. "I like their innocence," she says, smiling.

Before Ms. Beebe came to Parker, she had many jobs that have helped her get where she is now. She has been a maid in a hotel, a camp counselor, a waitress, and an English teacher in CPS. She took technology classes in college. Before working as an English teacher, she worked at Parker for a brief amount of time. She wanted to be an English teacher and left to teach English in public schools. But then the head of the Lower School at Parker, Ms. Ann Hills, asked Ms. Beebe to come back and teach technology. As you may be able to tell, almost all of these jobs have a lot of interaction with others, as does her job now. Her whole life, Ms. Beebe has wanted to work with kids. She got her existing job at Parker by hearing about an opening from a friend, Mr. Steve Dahlin, the computer repair person on the technology team. He told her about the job, and she interviewed and got it.

Technology, Ms. Beebe says, has changed the ways we understand things, the ways we process information, and the ways we learn. The rapid increases in technology in the past seven years have been "insane." In some ways, she says, it has improved her job. "I definitely prefer working with kids over having meetings," she says, "but to give the kids a better experience, I have to go to some meetings with teachers." She thinks eBooks are more convenient than normal books, but also believes there needs to be a balance: physical copies of books should be present in students' lives as well as eBooks. Ms. Beebe uses electronic devices "a hundred times a day" because she is running around the school and looking at her schedule and other important information on her phone.

A challenge Ms. Beebe faces with all grades is modeling proper use of devices, like when people are walking around the school with their phones. One challenge for her is teaching students to use a mouse, because people now use handheld devices and touchscreens. She is also concerned with what will happen in the future with technology, and with making sure kids are learning what they need to know. Because students as young as junior and senior kindergarteners use technology now, the hardest part of Ms. Beebe's job is working with these JK- and SK-ers. It's hard to teach them to use an app because many students that age are still in the early stages of learning to read. The light of a screen can be soothing, but Ms. Beebe also thinks continuously looking at a screen can make it difficult for children to calm down. She also thinks that using technology takes away from interactions with other people, and that you shouldn't have your phone out at the dinner table, because that's the time you should talk to your family. She believes technology should be used in thoughtful ways. Ms. Beebe has been surprised with how personal-use devices, like smartphones and iPads, have changed the world. She thinks it's hard for children to have a "constant onslaught of information" thrown at them. Ms. Beebe is also always learning about new technologies. With how quickly technologies change, she has to stay on top of new things in the tech world.

We are so thankful to Ms. Beebe for the characteristic enthusiasm and generosity she showed us during our interview, and for everything she does to integrate technology into students' lives in meaningful ways.

Ms. Beebe was kind enough to provide pictures of some of the projects she told us about, which you can see below: