About Me

I teach. I wouldn't say I obsess about my teaching, but I think my husband would say I do. My current classroom is a sophomore-level Humanities class in a private boarding school in Indiana. My previous classroom housed an Intensive English Program at the middle school level (grades 7-8) in south central Kentucky.

I built the foundation for my teaching in the ESL Service Courses and Intensive English Program at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign while I was working on a MATESL degree. I moved from there to Slovakia where I spent a year teaching EFL as a SOROS Fellow in a gymnazium. The folks at Utah State University then generously offered me an internship in the Intensive English Language Institute the following academic year. And from there, I moved to Indiana to teach ESL at the high school level for six years at the Culver Academies. On to Kentucky for eight years of teaching/building an ELL program (I went through the NBCT process while I was there. Good stuff!) And then, back to Indiana again.

My other, not-so-secret passion (although I'm allergic to the word "passion" right now) is leadership. Much of my work in the classroom and out is fueled by my school's mission to "educate students for leadership and responsible citizenship." The world needs stronger ethical leaders and responsible citizens right now. Group dynamics fascinate me. I'm drawn to highly-functioning teams and intrigued (and often frustrated) by highly-dysfunctional teams. I learn a lot from paying attention to both. I've got a resume detailing years of facilitation experience, but I learn something new every time I work with a new group. And I manage our school's challenge course; I've got access to a great leadership laboratory.

When I'm not teaching, I run. I am a mother, wife, runner, knitter, dog-lover, and nacho-eater. I have a running blog, too.