"It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge" Albert Einstein |
Hello and nice to meet you!
I teach at St. Joseph Catholic High School in Grande Prairie Alberta Canada. Grande Prairie is a city known for its oil and gas, farming, forestry and dinosaur fossil beds! Grande Prairie is a booming city with four new schools being built in the next few years (not bad for a city with a population of 55 000). I have been teaching for 25 years! This fact always makes me gasp and grimace because it seems as though I just started teaching yesterday. I am an English teacher who has taught English Language Arts for grades 8-12. Along with teaching I’ve also spent time in administration as a Vice Principal and as Head of the English Department. As well, I have spent a year setting up gifted programming for my district. As challenging and enlightening these experiences have been, I find I am most happy working with students and mentoring teachers. My MSE concentration is literacy. As an isolated farm girl I grew up with books as friends. My mission is to spread a love of reading to as many people as possible especially in young adults. My particular interest is finding ways to engage reluctant and struggling readers. I have a love/hate relationship with writing. I have published two blogs, one called “Kinckkackery and Notions”(mostly personal essays) and another “Ink and Spine” that is all about books and reading. Besides reading and writing I do enjoy golf, yoga, and running and I’m wonderfully inadequate in all three! I am also a huge travel fanatic and have been lucky enough to visit numerous countries in my lifetime, France and Japan being my favourites so far! |