About Me

Loyalty, a Result of Hardcore Punk Upbringing or: Why I'm Still Here

I started teaching at Prophetstown High School in 2000 after completing my schooling at Marygrove College in Detroit, MI. During my tenure at PHS I've taught a number of courses, including the Freshman Extended Learning Program, Literacy Studies, English I, English II, English III, Applied English IV, Supernatural Literature, Science Fiction Literature, Film as Literature, Journalism Newspaper, and Journalism Yearbook. I also hosted an after-school film club called Film Studies for approximately three years.  

I am an avid music and film fan, and have been known to drive a considerable distance to see a concert or an obscure film or two. I guess these are, simply put, obsessions of mine. I went into teaching, and specifically English, with a desire to help students grow as readers, writers, and thinkers, but also as people. My goal is that students come away from my courses with a different attitude toward English and with a keener eye to what they read, view, and hear in the world around them.

And that brings me up to the moment—to today. I'm here because I believe in this thing we're doing. There's something genuinely satisfying in it. Way back in 2000 when I started (back when I was young), someone who'd been in the district asked me, "So, are you going to stick around?" I said, "Yes."

 

And so, here I am, 15 years and 4 bands later, still sticking around. Much has changed since those formative years at the beginning of my teaching, but one thing somehow remains the same: this is what I do. Much like music, I can find no way to get it out of my system. Chalk it up to heredity (both my parents were educators before they retired and took to traveling), chalk it up to my taste in music and the thread of loyalty and staying true that runs through a good deal of hardcore, or chalk it up to my failing the story of my life in English my senior year. Whatever the case may be, teaching is something that has stuck with me. And I'm OK with that.