Hello and welcome to my webpage!
Background:
I am very excited to be teaching at Upper St. Clair High School. For the past five years, I have taught in the West Jefferson and Mount Lebanon School Districts. I graduated Magna Cum Laude from Robert Morris University with a degree in Social Science and a minor in American history. I grew up in Pittsburgh and my husband and I are huge Pens fans.
My goal as your teacher is to make you as excited about the study of history as I am. Please feel free to contact me with any questions or concern. I know we are going to have a fun filled year!
Classes:
Civics and Geography (9th grade):
Civics and World Geography is a year-long course which seeks to provide the student with an understanding of the both their own nation and world. The Civics semester focuses on the both the nature and functioning of our U.S. government. We will discuss the foundational beliefs that we hold as Americans, and then study how our government puts those beliefs into practice. The Geography semester acts as a "tour" of the globe. We will study each region of the world by analyzing its physical and human geography. A strong focus will be centered on contemporary issues that are in the news. The combined target of the course is to mold students into enlightened U.S. and global citizens.
Advance Placement Comparative Politics and U.S. Government (12th grade)
This course focuses on government and politics in other countries the first semester and the U.S. government the second semester. It provides a theoretical framework to compare political systems around the world. It is my hope that you will grasp the political complexities of our global environment, and gain an understanding of both commonalities and differences among modern political systems. In order to do this we will examine six core countries (Great Britain, Russia, Nigeria, Iran, Mexico and China) as well as multinational groups (The European Union) during the first semester. We will focus on our own government and politics the second semester.
TOK
According to the official IB description, “This course examines the origins and validity of various ways of knowing. The content is the various subject areas of a student’s education as well as personal beliefs acquired in or out of school. The process of the course is to reflect critically upon what the student claims to know and what is professed as knowledge by others.” (In other words, we will focus on how you know, rather than on what you know!)
The goals of this course are to gain an understanding of what it means to know something as a scientist, an artist, a mathematician, a philosopher, etc.; how the forms of knowledge relate to one another, and how to think critically. (In other words, we will examine how “it’s all connected.”)
In TOK, we learn that there are standards for judgment and defenses of knowledge claims. You must always back up what you say.
