I am a teacher in Lowell, Massachusetts, but had a long career at Harvard University, especially at the Ukrainian Research Institute, before that. I currently am the academic chair (department head) for the Social Studies Department at Lowell High School in Lowell Massachusetts. For my full responsibilities and work in that position, please see my résumé in the link below. As department chair, I also teach one course a year. Currently I teach about the history of education in America. In the past, at LHS, I have taught United States history, World history, psychology, communications theory, sociology, philosophy, Cold War history and international politics, and a course in US History specifically geared to provide enhanced support to students in need of significant remedial and credit recovery work. At Harvard I worked in publications at the Ukrainian Research Institute (with subjects ranging from economics to politics, church history to contemporary military affairs, and literary studies to belles lettres), and also taught Ukrainian, Russian, and was a teaching assistant for a course on Slavic cultures and history. I am polylingual and have worked especially on issues of cultural competence and response to bias-based incidents in recent years.
In sixteen years of public education, I have never allowed my personal political and religious views to be apparent to my students. I believe strongly in the co-construction of learning, which means that I want young people to create their own beliefs and convictions on the basis of critical thinking that is facilitated by my instruction, not by what they think I believe and the convictions I hold. However, for outside consumption, I openly espouse a progressive belief in open-world, social responsibility…what might be called an open-minded liberal in today’s climate. I also am a left-of-center Christian (United Church of Christ), who strongly believes in the equality of all faith traditions, as well as the dignity of atheism and agnosticism. I believe in a cultural competence that means be aware of one’s implicit bias and not merely “tolerating” or “respecting” other cultural traditions, but also thoughtfully adopting those elements of other cultural traditions that make me a better person and my community a better place to live.
My curriculum vitae/résumé can be downloaded here.
My departmental site – which I created and maintain – is located here.