About Mr. Spalding

After graduating high school, I traveled for a year with an organization called Up With People (UWP).  This is an international organization that was established in the late 1960's with the goal of working with young people to build connections between individuals of different cultures, nationalities, beliefs and mindsets.  UWP has casts made up of individuals from 18 through their mid 20's that travel to various cities, live with host families, assist with community service activities and perform a full stage musical/concert performance with songs/themes of understanding, coming together and finding common ground.  During my year with UWP, my cast had over 120 students that represented 27 different countries from across the world.  We spent time in 88 different cities across nine different countries in North America and Europe.  A quote from Dale Penny, the President/CEO of UWP, says a lot about the organizations beliefs.  The quote is:

"The future of the world will not be built by people like us…it will be built by people different from us with whom we find common ground."

I do the best I can to take that belief and mindset into my daily life as a father and educator.  This is my 29th year in education.  I spent my first seven years in education as a middle school science teacher in Lewisville and Denton.  The next eight years I worked as an elementary campus administrator in Denton.  After being in administration for that stretch, I realized that I missed working closely with kids, and I wanted to be back where "the rubber meets the road" so returned to the classroom. I have loved being back in the classroom and being a part of the Ryan High School Family.  This is a great campus with some amazing opportunities for the students.

My wife Karen and I are both Denton natives and work in education.  She is the Executive Director of Elementary Curriculum and Programs for Lewisville ISD.  We have two daughters, Lauren (25) who works at Hawk Elementary School here in Denton and Katherine (21) who majoring in Psychology at Baylor University.  In my down time, I enjoy relaxing, cooking out with friends and family, being outdoors, swinging in my hammock, singing with my church praise chorus and running.  In addition to many smaller races, I have completed eleven half marathons, two full marathons, and completed a 223 mile relay from Austin to Corpus Christi that took just over 34 hours with my running group fall of 2014.  

My wife's family has connections in Australia, and a few years ago I had the opportunity to meet some of "The Aussies" when they came to visit.  While here, they introduced me to "Footy" or Australian Rules Football (different from rugby) which I have fallen in love with.   With Melbourne, Australia being on the other side of the world and 15 hours ahead of us, it makes it difficult to watch the games live.  In spite of the time differences, more often than not during the footy season, I am awake in the middle of the night on weekends watching the footy match livestream and messenging with The Aussies about the game.  I barrack for the Richmond Tigers and proudly support the Yellow & Black.  After a good win, my classes might even catch me whistling the Tiger's fight song around the building..."Oh we're from Tigerland..."

Philosophy of Education:

I believe that the goal of education is not the learning of random facts and information; instead, it is developing a skill set that enables individuals to know how to find information and then determine how best they can put that information to use.