Teacher. Writer. Adventurer.
MY STORY
I am a lifelong learner and 14-year educator. Since childhood, stories have been central to my life. Comprehending, connecting, and discussing great stories in history and literature occupied me from such an early age that they later became my main passion. My mom can recall my looking up from my encyclopedia at age 9 and describing the turns and battles of the Civil War; my US 1 students from last year can recall something very similar, as I paced my classroom like a caged lion. The depth of the information has changed but the fierce love of storytelling has not.
I grew up near the ocean in the great state of New Jersey and was a social outcast for most of my childhood. In each school I attended, I slowly accumulated a small group of friends who appreciated who I was. For the most part, however, I was spiritually apart from my classmates and their concerns. This continued long after I ceased being a bullied little runt and grew into an explosive, hard-training young man.
During this time, I was a good but not great student. I read voraciously. My high school grades were enough to (barely) qualify me to attend state universities, but not enough to send me somewhere elite. I studied hard at the University of Texas and succeeded in transferring to Cornell University after one year, majoring in History. Cornell was everything I hoped it would be: a place that expanded and challenged my mind, pushed my capability, and introduced me to some of the most important and influential people in my life.
The same could be said of my path to a Masters degree in English back at the University of Texas. I worked blue collar labor jobs before, during, and after both of these academic periods. School was never a question of “how do I get (x) job” for me, although I thought for a long time I wanted to be a college professor. When I truly understood how much academia was about writing instead of teaching, and reflected on my own joy teaching non-majors as a TA at Texas, I considered teaching middle and high school in a place where I could really be of service.
I was accepted into Teach for America, an organization that recruits driven and college-educated people to teach for a 2 year commitment in a school with a desperate need. TFA sent me to Tulsa, Oklahoma, where I completed my commitment at a school struggling hard enough that the district closed it at the end of my two years. I stuck around Tulsa for another year, committed to helping close the “achievement gap” that exists for students in high-poverty environments when they are compared with students from wealthier backgrounds. While that commitment never dampened, my enthusiasm for Oklahoma and its miserable teacher pay certainly did. After my third year, my fiance (and fellow TFA alum) moved to the vibrant city of Austin, Texas, my old stamping grounds.
I continued my mission for five years at a KIPP charter school dedicated to closing the achievement gap. Then our first baby arrived and changed everything for us. We moved to my wife’s hometown in southeastern Kansas so our growing family could be close to her family. I spent four years in a fringe rural school before transferring to Wichita East High School, the largest school in the state.
Through my career path, I have continued to cultivate my many passions and interests. I strength train hard and condition hard; my barbells get as much use as my bookshelves. I enjoy long hikes in the high country, the nerdy intricacies of brewing quality coffee, and classic historical texts like Gibbon’s “Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.” I participate in the “Murph” challenge every Memorial Day and seek to refine my skill in the fine art of smoking meat to perfection. I have truly loved music since I got my first Walkman at age 10, and you’re as likely to hear a composer like Arvo Part on my speakers as you are to hear a Neil Young score or British gothic metal legends Paradise Lost. I have competed in Lord of the Rings Trivia and have also competed in the Tulsa “Scot Fest” Highland Games Heavy Events. I have a labor-of-love history podcast called the Edge of History, in which I do my best to tell a well-researched but underrated story from the human past.
In case you can’t tell, one of the single lines in literature to inspire me the most is Whitman’s “I contain multitudes.”
I want it all: to create, to tell stories, to make a difference, to learn about different arts to the extent of deep understanding and maybe even skill. I want connection with soil and the process of life as much as connection with past lives of people and the best they had to offer us as a legacy.
If you’ve read this far, thanks. I hope you can get something out of what I have to offer.