It is such an honor to have my colleagues nominate me for this award. In addition to my position as a health and physical education teacher, I also am the department chair of the Health and PE Department at Sanford School. I serve as a positive role model for our Sanford students by first and foremost showing up every single day. I come to work with a positive attitude and work hard to make connections with my students. I interact with students from grades PreS-12th grade on a daily basis. Because of the physical layout of Sanford’s campus, each Lower School class needs to be escorted across campus to the gym. This is a great time to check in with students and get to know them before and afterclass. I model the tone for the upcoming class as we traverse campus. This also provides good physical activity for me as I typically walk 5-6 miles per teaching day. Last year, I shared with my classes my progress as I trained for a 60 mile backpack trip; the students provided extra motivation as I prepared.
One way I make personal connections with my students is through coaching. I have coached many sports at Sanford, having coached nearly each of the three seasons for my 28 years on both middle school and varsity levels. I briefly stepped away from coaching during the spring season to watch my own children play Sanford sports. After one season off, I was drawn back by my former middleschool athletes to once again coach high school spring track. My coaching philosophy has always been athlete centered with a primary focus on sportsmanship. As a coach and health teacher, I meet students where they are on any given day. A great example is on the cross country team where I adapted workouts for athletes based on their level of fitness and ability. A team expectation was that all runners cheer on the entire team, whether finishing first or last in a race. In my healthclasses, I often ask students what is important in their lives and then adapt my curriculum to incorporate their interests in my teaching. This became even more important at the high school level where my students tended to exhibit more stress and anxiety