Technology Instructor/IT Director
After short stints as an engineering major and a music major I received my Bachelor’s Degree in Liberal Studies from San Francisco State University in 1989. I then entered the teacher credentialing program there, earning my credential in January of 1990. I worked the rest of that school year as a substitute teacher. I saw a lot of classrooms, collecting the best ideas and lessons that I came across as I worked at schools throughout Marin. I got the opportunity to run my own classroom the following year in the Mill Valley School District and I taught grades 5 – 8 in Mill Valley for 9 years. I became involved in Project Based Learning, working with the Buck Institute and the Autodesk Foundation and presenting at their national conference on Project Based Learning. I started dreaming of a program where kids could design and build things; a context for the various other skills that are sometimes somewhat abstract…
During that time I became impressed with the possibilities presented by the personal computer, and I took some classes toward an IT Certificate – before I finished I was offered a job in the computer department at Illuminations in Petaluma. I learned a lot about computers, software and networks and then accepted a job with North Bay Marin School as a ½-time math teacher and ½-time network administrator – things started to fit together nicely. Over the next few years I taught several different classes at North Bay (now The Marin School) eventually taking on computer programming and manifesting my project based interests by helping start the TMS Fabrication Laboratory. This wonderful resource enables students to design and build the sorts of projects – robots, electric vehicles, kinetic sculpture, electric guitars and more – that I was dreaming of back in my early days of teaching. The Marin School is a fantastic place to work.
Recently events conspired to lure me away from TMS (more computer work, and the chance to spend more time with my wife and kids by working from home). After one year away the opportunity to come back arose, and I’m ecstatic to be a high school math teacher again. I love teaching math - I had many terrific teachers as a kid, most memorably my high school math teacher Larry Demetrak. I was fortunate enough to be in Mr. Demetrak’s classes for three years, during which time he passed along not only a lot of knowledge about Algebra, Trigonometry and Calculus but also an enthusiasm for teaching – his classes were never dull, and yet were always focused on the content… not always easy in high school math courses… something to which I aspire.
So it has all come together for me here at TMS; the math, the project based learning, the computers, and the teaching!
Outside the classroom I love to spend time with my wife Gen and our kids Max and Madison… I ride and restore old British motorcycles and play music, ride mountain bikes and go camping and hiking. I was born and raised in Marin, and still can’t get enough of the amazing place we live.