• What is your most memorable teaching experience? 

I loved creating gigantic math projects outside for my students. Once the custodian painted an enormous coordinate plane on the play field for me. The students worked in teams to plot “constellations,” and figured out how to make translations of their constellations, simulating how the stars seem to rotate around the north star, depending on the time of year. Another great activity I prepared for my students was to create the United States across all the soccer fields. The students had to complete a data scavenger hunt after choosing which states they wanted to “visit”. They applied their place value knowledge on a variety of math tasks as they collected data and learned a bit about different states.

• What hobbies or interests do you enjoy?

I enjoy reading and traveling. My favorite kind of travel is when it includes museums and learning everything about the history of that place. I read all kinds of books and articles, from psychology to new research about teaching, and gothic fiction to historical non-fiction. I am listening to the greatest audiobook right now about the Battle of Gettysburg. I also really love tinkering and making things. Sometimes I paint. Sometimes I restore furniture. Sometimes I am redesigning my house or garden. I save a lot of random pieces and parts to repurpose them, and make something entirely new or solve a problem. 

• Fun fact?

Something you might not guess (or even believe) about me is that I was really good at a lot of sports. I played field hockey, basketball, softball, and ran track in high school. I was a high jumper and broke my school’s record for points scored in my track career. I also played basketball in college! Now I’m old and rickety. I’m pretty sure you could beat me. 

• Favorite quote?

“Most folks are about as happy as they make their minds up to be.” — Abraham Lincoln