I reached out to Mrs. Regnier as during the distance learning period she was easy to communicate with and very open to helping her students through the difficult time period. She made the online learning experience fun as well as productive and efficient.
What got you into teaching?
I tutored at a literacy center in the mall during my senior year in high school, and I met a wide cast of lovely characters there. My favorite was Mr. Lindsay who lost his reading and alphabet due to a stroke. A nurse wheeled him in twice a week, and he and I worked on recapturing his ability to read and write so that he could send birthday cards and letters to his grandchildren and great-grandchildren. I learned so much from the experience, especially the power of literacy on society and on the individual.
Where do you find your inspiration for teaching?
My students. They are funny, clever, and imaginative humans who remind me that we are all more alike than we are different. I yield a large boost from that kind of belonging.
What do you like most about teaching?
The universality and the power of the story. Truths are the same, just in different languages. Science laws, math patterns, social trends, and historical events all share the same truths, and the story of each one delivers its power.
How do you feel about the Covid situation regarding school?
Schooling our youth is one of the endless elements in our society affected by COVID-19. But it’s not the first pandemic humanity has faced, and, sadly as history teaches us, it won’t be our last. This, too, shall pass, as they say.
How comfortable do you feel going back to school?
Comfort is such a relative and personal reaction to all that’s going on. But I look to our leadership for guidance, here. I’m so grateful to be working for a district that has our best interests in mind, staff and students!
What has been the hardest part about moving your classes online?
I think the hardest part has been moving what I do organically in the classroom to an at-the-ready resource for students on the classroom Canvas page. Similarly, instead of listening to a class discussion, I read dozens of pages of discussion threads for each class period almost every day. The learning is obviously there and the discussions are still great, but making the transition from listening in real time to reading was a challenge.
