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| New Faculty Profile: Elizabeth Martin, Upper School Biology & Chemistry |
Elizabeth Martin is the kind of person who soaks it all in. If there’s an opportunity to learn something new, she’ll take it.Shipley’s new Upper School biology and chemistry teacher uses that approach in her classroom, as well as in her life. “I love the creativity that goes into teaching,” she says. “You can just change your lesson based on something that happens outside your window and turn that into a learning experience.”
Martin’s father, a high school earth science teacher by profession, influenced her greatly. “The real classroom is outside,” read a poster in his classroom. So in addition to getting her degree in physics from Notre Dame, Martin has spent a lot of time studying in the “real classroom.”
At 18 she attended American Wilderness Leadership School, where she learned wilderness first aid and outdoor survival skills. She also attended Appalachian Trail ridgerunner training that prepares volunteers for a ranger-like position for specific stretches of the trail.
Though Martin’s father hoped that she would become a ridgerunner after college, she decided to follow in his footsteps, accepting a teaching position with the Catholic Network of Volunteer Services on an Apache Indian reservation in Lumberton, New Mexico. “I fell in love with teaching,” she says of her two years as a middle school math and science teacher there.
While teaching, she also participated in an ongoing program run by the University of California’s Center for Research on Education, Diversity, and Excellence, a federally funded program to help improve the education of students who face challenges such as language barriers, poverty, or geographic location.
This summer, Martin completed her Masters in Education at the University of Pennsylvania. She’s well familiar with pedagogical jargon, but when asked to describe her teaching style she says, “I judge my success in setting up experiences for students to learn about science. It’s not so much about the content, or what they need to know. I like to try different things and see what students learn.”
Just one month into her new job, Martin is thrilled to be at Shipley. “Every day there’s something else that makes me say, ‘Yeah, I really like this place.’”
Copyright © 2008 The Shipley School, www.shipleyschool.org