Greetings, new Second Grade families!
I hope you have many plans to relax,
adventure, and enjoy the company of family and friends this
summer. This summer will be a busy one for me: I will be helping my wife, Danielle, study for her final big test to become a doctor; hosting out-of-town guests; camping; floating the Clackamas; taking another class for my Masters; AND MORE!
This will be my tenth year teaching,
and my seventh year at Cascade Heights, where I have taught third and second grade, and some of your older children have been in my classes. Before I came to Cascade, I
taught fifth grade in inner-city San Jose, California. I also taught sixth grade
summer school in Compton, Los Angeles and worked with four- and
five-year-olds in a daycare setting in North Idaho. My classroom teaching career
formally started with my acceptance into Teach for America, an
AmeriCorps program that works to close the achievement gap in
high-needs school districts across the country. It is an intense
two-year commitment, where corpsmembers are simultaneously teaching
in their own classrooms (on intern credentials) and earning their
teaching credentials by attending school full-time. That was
certainly a baptism by fire!
I am currently enrolled at Portland
State University to earn my Masters in Education, so this year will
be jam-packed with teaching your children, furthering my own
education, and checking in on my own two kids (Elora in sixth grade
and Isaiah in fifth grade this fall), as well as supporting my wife, Danielle, in starting her own business as a Naturopathic doctor.
While I am still developing my teaching
philosophy, Cascade Heights has been integral in what I have formed
so far: “Education at best is ecstatic” (George Leonard). It is
my goal as a teacher to make every moment engaging, meaningful,
exciting, and memorable for my students. There is so much to learn,
and if children are taught correctly, they LOVE to learn it, and they
learn it better. Yes, sometimes it is a challenge to make each
spelling word thrilling, or a facts practice worksheet joyous, but
that is my personal mission. I have found that I am at my best as a
teacher and my students are at their best as learners when I (and
they) are having fun, touching, talking, doing, and seeing. Humor,
curiosity, and fearlessness are qualities that are prized and
developed in my classroom. The lofty pursuit of sensory-immersion
instruction and the excellent choice of curricula at Cascade Heights
have allowed me to craft my lessons in such a way that students are
celebrating learning, and the doors it opens up for them.
Enjoy your summer; I know I will!
Best,
Hunter Currey
