The new school year brought many new faces to the middle school, including some new staff! Ms. Tisdale, Ms. Esformes, and Coach B. are all wonderful teachers who are joining us this year. In order to better introduce them to our community, I asked them a few questions.
Coach B.
Do you feel as though you have been thoroughly welcomed into this community?
Yes, it’s a very welcoming community. I feel like especially when you have a small community like this, it’s easy to get to know everybody. Here, I feel like I know all my students and many of their parents, and I know the teachers well already even though it’s just a month in.
What do you feel you add to this community?
Well, I am the only openly LGBT staff member in the middle school, and I feel like that’s a need that needs to be filled, so I’m glad I’m here representing that. I think I also add new perspective of having taught in public school and having attended independent schools. I feel like I have a good perspective on how to take the positive things that I’ve seen in both of those environments. I like bring a lot of structure and routine, and I think that that’s a product of having been a public school teacher.
Do you like possums?
I feel like maybe there’s some sort of hidden meaning to this question… I’m gonna say no, just cause usually they’re dead and on the side of the road and kinda creepy looking.
Ms. Esformes
Have you taught in the past, and if so, how does FCS differ from your previous school?
I have taught in the past. I’ve taught in more traditional classrooms, more traditional settings, also in Uruguay and Israel, and also in Virginia, but also in afterschool programs as well. So, this is definitely different than that, but a lot more respect for students for teachers and teachers for students, and just the general culture here is very different, and the Quaker culture is very different as well.
How do you like to make your lessons interesting?
I try to mix in activities, like the decoding activity that we did, or things where people are interacting with each other. I also try to have a lot of energy while I’m teaching so I hope that makes it more interesting.
What do you think of your lesson plan for the year?
I think it’s pretty awesome. I’m trying to incorporate of lot of everything, have notes on slides and activities, having everything mixed up. I think you’re going to learn a lot this year, and I hope I can get a couple people to like history as much as I do, so yeah, I think they’re pretty great.
Ms. Tisdale
Why did you become a teacher?
I became a teacher because I always wanted to inspire children, youth, in the areas of mathematics, and I knew that there were not a lot of people that were mathematicians and physicists that went back into the classroom. Very few of us end up back in the classroom, or even going into the classroom, cause a lot of times we tend to take on jobs in industries and also in government, so you find a lot of scientists heading that way, and not coming back. Or they’ll teach at a University level, not K-12. And I wanted to inspire the youth.
Do you like possums?
Do I like possums? I like looking at possums. I’m not really a fan of rodents, big rodents, large rodents. I mean, they don’t bother me, but as long as they stay in their lane, I stay in my lane, we’re good.
What do you think of your lesson plan for the year?
So, my lesson plan for the year is, one, like I said, I’m all about inspiring people, making sure that my students embody math practices. So, my lesson plan is not just if you understand it as a concept, but how do you embody that with math practices, so that’s part of my lesson plan as well.
At the end of these interviews, I asked each teacher if I could get an “A” in their class. They all said something along the lines of, “If you work at it,” so I suppose I’ll hop on that. They are all thrilled to be joining our community, so if you haven’t already, stop by their rooms to say hi!