Welcome to Avenues!

College/University:
Stanford University

Major:
Political Science

Plans for after graduation:
Public office

How did Avenues prepare you for college?
Avenues taught me to always be open-minded and flexible in whatever I did. This is something that has helped me a lot so far this year as a college freshman.

What is the most valuable skill you developed at Avenues?
Definitely my discussion skills! By being encouraged to voice my opinions in my classes, I learned how to synthesize and express my thoughts in an effective way.

What did you enjoy most about being part of the Avenues community?
The unconditional support from faculty, staff, and peers who wanted to see me succeed in anything that I pursued.

Favorite thing about Avenues
The wide array of opportunities that extend outside of the classroom, such as the Mastery program, Global Journeys trips, 5th Term, and club experiences.

College/University
The University of Chicago

College major/minor
Philosophy

How did Avenues prepare you for college?
Avenues has given me a toolbox that I will take with me for the rest of my life. From the skills I acquired over my four years at Avenues, I feel confident in my ability to tackle any problems that come my way.

What did you enjoy most about being part of the Avenues community?
There were many aspects of the Avenues community that made me deeply enjoy being apart of it. I think most notable were the diversity of passions within the Avenues student body and faculty that I did not fully appreciate until now being in college. Even if you were not in class, learning occurred, whether it be in the hallways or at lunch, due to the variation of passions among students I could always depend on hearing about something from a peer.

Hometown
Commack, NY

Degrees and schooling
BS Mathematics, SUNY@Stony Brook
BS Physics, SUNY@Stony Brook
MS Physics, SUNY@New Paltz

Years of teaching experience
34 years with 8 years at Avenues

Division you teach
Upper Grades

What do you enjoy most about teaching at Avenues?
At Avenues I (and my colleagues) are given full support to work together in a fully organic, bottom-up way to make the time students spend in class feel like there are no walls. After all, the idea of "walled-up-knowledge" is about as far away from how the real world operates...why would a school ever act otherwise?

How is Avenues' approach to teaching and learning different from other schools that you've worked in?
When students get a clear message that how to think is much more important than what to think, they immediately begin adopting a more proactive stance with regard to their work ethic, their curiosity, and their motivation to center their learning and growth not toward a "test score" but instead toward becoming a positive causal agent in the greater community.

How do you challenge and support your students?
Real-world problems. Real-world scenarios. Real-world challenges!

Hometown
McLean, Virginia

Degrees and schooling
Bachelor of Arts in English (Pre-Education & Creative Writing) Minor in Leadership and Social Change, Virginia Tech
Masters of Arts in the Teaching of English, Teachers College, Columbia University

Division you teach
Middle Grades

Years of teaching experience
9 years with 4 years at Avenues

Describe your teaching philosophy
I believe students learn best when they grapple with material through multiple, diverse learning modalities, as this allows them to develop nuanced insights on the topic. Specifically, I have learned that collaboration among the Humanities department is crucial to student learning and growth. For example, instead of just learning about the Holocaust in history class through a teacher’s lecture, class discussion, or textbook excerpt, students need to read about it in English class through Josef’s words in Refugee by Alan Gratz, a novel about three childrens’ search for refuge. Students need to engage in a silent gallery walk on Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken Glass, in order to see the images of destroyed property that night. They need to read first-hand stories about those who lived during that time period and engage in dialogue over whose right is it to share and embody such stories, exploring whether we can give justice to such events through our own imagination and perspective work. This intersectionality helps students view topics and people, both in events and novels, as multifaceted and complex, enabling students to create their own informed opinions along the way.

How is Avenues' approach to teaching and learning different from other schools that you've worked in?
A lot of schools emphasize collaboration, but Avenues is the first school I've been at that actually provides the time and space for it.

How would you describe Avenues students?
Energetic and excited to learn.

How is Avenues preparing students for an uncertain future?
Having Crew allows us the time and flexibility to talk to our students about current events and ways to make a difference in age-appropriate ways that feel right to our group of students.

College/University
University of St Andrews

Grade started at Avenues
4

Language track
Mandarin

Academic interests
Physics, mathematics, chemistry.

Extracurricular involvements
Spice Club, Asian Awareness, Student Ambassador, International Student Council.

Memorable project, assignment, or experience
In 10th grade, I went on a trip to Shenzhen, China as a part of the Mastery Academy. With students from the São Paulo campus, my team designed and built a 3D printer from scratch.

Favorite Avenuess tradition
Days of Seniors.

Three words you’d use to describe Avenues
Adventurous, novel, fun.