Why did you choose to work in education?
I received the North Carolina Teaching Fellows scholarship to Elon College (now Elon University), so education was my ticket to college. My mom was my first grade teacher and my dad was my high school chorus teacher, so education was what you did in my family. As it turned out, I loved teaching 7th and 8th graders and hearing their funny, quirky, and insightful thoughts about social studies and English. After 31 years in education, I still believe that middle school is our last best chance to reach our amazing students.
What is the best professional advice you've ever received?
The best way to get your next job is to do great work in the job you have now.
What is something you like a lot that would surprise people?
Black licorice. Fine, don't like it; more for me!
What is on your bucket list?
I want to have lunch with Shaquille O'Neal. I'm sure he will let me call him Shaq after we've had lunch :-) He makes me laugh, he's around my age (cough cough), and he continues to reinvent himself since retiring from basketball. Let me know if you know someone who can make this happen!
What is the most interesting place you’ve ever been?
When I studied at the University of London in 1990, I had the opportunity to visit Berlin, Germany a few months after the Berlin Wall began to come down. Standing by the wall made of barbed wire and concrete that was meant to separate and segregate, and considering the thousands of people who risked imprisonment and death to escape East Germany was so powerful. I brought a few pieces of the wall home with me (shhhhhh) as a reminder of this time in history. Today, I see those pieces as a reminder that we should seek to dismantle what literally and metaphorically separates and segregates us. I haven't been back to visit the Berlin Wall Memorial, but I would recommend experiencing this historical reminder.
What is a question you should NEVER ask me?
If you could only eat one food for the rest of your life, what would it be? That's just wrong to make me choose, even hypothetically.