(1) acts as a strong and positive ambassador for EPS
(2) attends school events and student performances (i.e. arts, athletics, social)
(3) participates visibly in the daily life of the school
(4) recognizes and supports diversity in all its forms
(1) acts as a strong and positive ambassador for EPS
(5/2020) Senior Speeches for Soccer players. From 2:12-20:20 are the speeches I gave about the 7 seniors I coached on the soccer team: Luca, Chase, Mwansa, Nat, Hayden, Gavin, and Andrew. And below are some unsolicited parent responses.
(2) attends school events and student performances (i.e. arts, athletics, social)
(10/2018) Personal essay written when the writing expectations for the PDP were a little different- and I liked this story too much to trim it.
“My name is DJ Íñigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to Dance, Dance, Dance, Dance, Dance. “
That was my opening to the 7/8th grade Halloween dance as I was the “lucky” DJ for that evening….And to help build the mental picture, yes, I dressed up as Íñigo Montoya, letting my hair down and wearing a leather vest, because it was Halloween. How I ended up in that position is all credit to Lisa Frystak. Leveraging my role as Mixed Tape club sponsor, she knew I could get those Upper School students to make some sort of a playlist for the dance- and she was right. In Mixed Tape club, we spent a few meetings brainstorming, analyzing student survey results, adding songs, removing (usually explicit), and arranging songs until we had some semblance of a setlist.
Going into the dance I felt nervous, as I have never DJ’d something other than a long car ride with friends. But once I saw the tables of candy and Beetlejuice projected on the LPC screen, I knew at any point during the night the students had 2 good options to take their mind off the music.
The setlist started off thematically strong with Thriller, Superstition, and the Monster Mash. And things went well for a good while- Safety Dance led to the most dancefloor “dancing”. And during this time something unexpected happened. I’d get these middle schoolers, for whom the most part I didn’t know already, dressed as a superhero or a banana approach me and ask if they could request songs… This was not something I was prepared for. I had double the length of songs needed to last the dance already, do I really need more songs?. So I tried to play the harmonizer line of , “Possibly. The Mixed Tape club made a long playlist but what would you like to listen to if there’s time?”. Little would I know this small gesture would come in handy later. From these requests I created a secondary playlist of songs- ranging from Frozen’s “Let it Go” to John Denver’s “Country Roads” to a Spanish song that was not “Despacito” that I presumed was too random to fit on the Halloween dance playlist. But I was wrong.
Fast forward 20 minutes and I couldn’t have been more thankful for this impromptu song list after the Backstreet Boys “Everybody” disastrously left no body on the dancefloor.
Cue the popular student request of a-ha’s “Take On Me” and the gendered-group stand-singing resumed! This continued as “Let it Go” and “Bohemian Rhapsody” followed shortly after. And once students heard songs that they requested, I had a steady line of people coming to request a song for the rest of the night. Now being overloaded with requests, I started to tally how often a song was requested and play those with the most requests.
Well, from my point of view after switching to student requests the rest of the night was fairly uneventful. I became less worried about the music and more entertained by talking with the students and watching the students mingle. It helped me zoom out of myself and enjoy the moment. So enjoy the moment I did. A few candies, a few chaperone convos, and a few songs later the dance was done. Cleanup, thank yous, and good bye’s followed. And DJ Íñigo Montoya was done attending a school event.
For your enjoyment, here’s a link to the Spotify Playlist from that night: 7/8 Dance
(3) participates visibly in the daily life of the school
(2/2020) I tracked my whereabouts on what ended up being one of our last days on campus. In comparing this to what my memory tells me about my earlier years at EPS, my days are much busier now.
7:20 met Gavin Smith, An and Derek for breakfast and meeting about soccer in the Cafeteria
8:00-9:25 Study hall in LPC. Led to various conversations with DKH about New Zealand and other. Gunnar. Wink. Barrager. Derek again. And Collelo.
9:25-9:35 met with student to go over test retake
9:35-11:00 Taught Calculus class on Newton’s method
11:05-11:50 sat in on Forefront presentation regarding suicide prevention
12:00-12:15 had lunch with prospective MS math candidate
12:15-12:28 met with veteran returning players and soccer coaches to decide on student leadership this season
12:30-1:55 Algebra 2 class on Sketching polynomials. Had Bert and prospective teacher visit class too. And unexpectedly a friend from the NAIS conference dropped in.
2:05-2:20 meeting with a parent of Alg2 student
2:35-3:30 meeting with John Stegeman for PDP
3:35-3:50 HOS debrief in balcony
4:00-5:15 Faculty-Student Basketball game
5:30-??? Rehydration with fellow colleague-ballers
(4) recognizes and supports diversity in all its forms
(12/2020) I’d like to be up front that this is not a topic that was easy for me to write about- partially due to the broadness of the topic, partially due to the political nature of the topic, and partially due to this not being an area I’ve done much work with yet.
I am especially intentional about considering neurodiversity when teaching and designing math experiences. Since joining EPS, I have been focused on making sure my teaching reaches the full diversity of learners that show up in my room. I personally do not have any learning differences but I fully believe in the saying that what is good for one student is probably good for another. Making the effort to scaffold an activity to reach a student who has executive functioning challenges will certainly help the student I had in mind and I believe it will also improve the experience of others.
As an area of growth, in my day-to-day of teaching math I have not done a good job yet of bringing in contemporary societal conversations around gender, race, or socioeconomic inequality (math as a subject hasn’t historically lent itself to these conversations but I’m open to improving that).
To give some context, in almost every way, I had a privileged childhood and continue to live a privileged adult life. I grew up in a nuclear family in an American community where I identified with the majority racial and ethnic groups. I was fortunate enough to have my parents provide for me unconditional love, stable housing (lived in the same house until I moved out), and solid middle-class financial support (never having to worry about where to sleep or what to eat). Further, as a cis-white-male I have not experienced much discrimination or oppression. Truly I feel lucky to have had the childhood I did and for how I am able to live now. From experiencing a life full of love and acceptance, I try to bring that in every interaction and conversation I have. Is that enough? No. I recognize I am not as engaged as I could be in tackling society’s fear of diversity and that is something I’d like to work on. Next steps will involve reading suggested books and articles by colleagues as well, having intentional conversations, and becoming more involved with the Equity and Inclusion and Compassionate Leadership group on campus.