My favorite part about teaching at Johnson is: I love connecting tangibly to the future and helping students bring about God’s work here and now. The work I do with K12 pre-service teachers lets me connect the passion God gave me for teaching to up-and-coming students who have also been guided to go into the teaching profession.

When I’m not teaching, I love to: Hike, read, camp with family, coach Little League soccer, drink coffee, play wallyball, and build things

In my classes, students can expect: To create and problem-solve. “In the beginning God created,” and a key way we learn is by doing. Sometimes we run into issues that don’t have a clear solution and rather than having “all the answers,” I expect students to grapple with and think through problems.

My best advice to a new student in my program is: To own your learning as a teacher. Truthfully a solid teacher never outgrows their “student” roots. We are blessed with not being omniscient – a key difference between who God is and who we are. Apply yourself and you’ll enter the classroom as an engineer of incredible learning experiences, and an architect for helping children grow in mind, body, soul, and spirit.

Because of my influence, I most want my students to become: People who share the gospel by how they teach and work and live. I want students to discover, recognize, and embrace the talents and gifts they’ve been given by God – and use them for his glory in helping God put his family back together again.

The myth-busting truth about my discipline I most want people to understand is: Being a K12 teacher is not easy, but it can be very rewarding. The capacity to reach into the lives of children and help them go from one place to another in a moment, a year, or several years is amazing. Your work as a teacher doesn’t mean you’re done when the last bell rings or that you get summers off. Being a teacher means investing in the lives of people – to help them learn and to help them go further. In a way it’s investing in a future you yourself may not see.

A quote that influences how I live is: Give your life willingly and faithfully to something that will outlast it and your life will be so much more than it could have been otherwise.