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Thank You for 20 "Mo" Years.

By Anonymous
After 20 years of teaching at Brookfield Central, I am saying goodbye. Although I spent the majority of that time in the physics classroom alongside my learners. That changed for my last 18 weeks. I ended up in a place similar to where I started, teaching chemistry and biology. So, rather than dealing with juniors and seniors at the end of their high school careers, I was in classrooms with freshmen and sophomores still trying to find their place. At the same time, I was learning and teaching a set curriculum I hadn't taught in over a decade. So, we were learning. But, of course, I already knew the content.  The point of this post is to take a step back, reflect, and share the gratitude from the last students I had in my 20 years at Brookfield Central High School, as expressed through the cards and notes they made for me on my last day with them.  I don't take many "yay me" moments. But after 20 years, I'll soak this one in.
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The Ripple Effect of Teaching: Beyond the Traditional Classroom

By Anonymous

 




The Ripple Effect of Teachers

Last week was a big one to face the facts of my recent medical condition. For those who do not know, in mid-2022 I was diagnosed with seronegative autoimmune encephalitis. On Wednesday of last week, a pair of Launch Medical and Health Care Strand students presented a personal narrative about my experience. Their presentation was a personal narrative combining a personal interview and research on the disease.  Although the slideshow doesn’t do their presentation justice, it will give you a general overview of the narrative. They covered many aspects of the condition from the factual to the personal narrative, and the lessons learned. They did a wonderful job of capturing a human story rather than listing a clinical definition.


At the end of the week, Brookfield Central High School had our annual career day. I was lucky enough to have the ICU neurologist Dr. Gregory Rozanzky who handled my care while I was in the intensive care unit attend and present to over 70 students. Topics ranged from what the career looks like daily, the educational requirements, the most difficult to the most unusual cases, and a brief explanation of my case. An important aspect for those interested in the field is that Dr. Rozansky went through his educational journey.  Below is a clip of his session.



An important takeaway I gained from his talk was that you may not know what you want your profession to be until you have experienced it. The most surprising was that he enjoyed the teaching aspect of his position the most. The fact that every student, a future physician, he teaches will affect at least 5 other lives. The ripple effect a good teacher can have on the lives around them will only continue to spread. I love that Dr. Rozansky points out that this applies to many careers, not just his own, but to anyone who, at some point, has to pass on a set of skills. It is what my great student teachers did for me. I hope that someday, I will be allowed to do the same. In my new role, I can have an impact on staff which can be applied in their classrooms.




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