Sentinel Secondary boasts a wide array of incredible and beloved teachers, ones that we as students are lucky to learn from. But not every student will meet every teacher, and the prospect of going into a class with a brand new teacher may be intimidating. To dispel some of that mystique, Alice and I (Neeka) sat down with two of Sentinel’s AP teachers in the hopes of getting to know them a little bit better.
So, would you guys like to introduce yourselves?
A: My name is Kristi Alm, and I teach AP Psychology and AP Biology.
G: Dave Gibson, AP Stats, AP Physics.
First off, everyone wants to know, what is your teacher origin story? How did you become a teacher and why?
G: *Points to Ms. Alm* It’s always you first.
A: Do you want the real story or the one that’s better for [the story?] A: To be honest, I went to it [teaching] because I wanted a job that I could travel with. And at that point, it was only a year-long course—I knew they needed teachers in Australia, New Zealand, England, and I was like let’s go for it. I ended up being super lucky that it was the right thing for me and the right job. But when I graduated I didn’t know that I wanted to be a teacher—when I graduated I didn’t know what I wanted to do.
G: It started for me with work experience in high school. I volunteered to work with my old kindergarten teacher for a month. I actually wanted to be a kindergarten teacher coming out of high school, and I got to teach the astronomy unit where you did the paper mache planets and the dinosaurs unit because Mrs. Taylor knew that those were my favourites. But I had crappy school counsellors and they convinced me to do hard stuff, so I took astrophysics for 8 years, wasted my time with that, and came back to teaching because I realized that I always wanted to be a teacher and I shouldn't have listened to my counsellors that way. That being said, listen to counsellors because they give good advice.
What made you decide to teach the subjects that you do?
A: I went into science. I think at that point, I kind of wanted to, like, save the forests when I was graduating high school.
G: Marine biologist?
A: No, I was going to be a plant biologist.
G: You weren't a marine biologist? I thought everybody was a marine biologist-
A: Ummmmmm.
G: *laughs*
A: So I ended up being a science teacher, but I needed a second teachable, so my second teachable is actually English. So I have a minor in English because I like to read books and analyze literature.
N: Same, same.
G: Physics and math for me because I was pretty good at it. I really thought I was good at explaining why certain things work and certain things don't work and I found out that I kind of enjoy speaking in front of groups. And for teaching, if anyone has ever been in my class, they might notice that I kind of like making it a bit of a show, because it’s my chance to use the radio voice once in a while.
N: I do remember you throwing Mr. Hsia’s calculator across the room one time.
A: He doesn’t scare you?
G: Yeah, I do have a thing for the dramatics, it's a thing. But I have also serenaded the man, so you know.
Al: It's really nice that you guys enjoy teaching. I feel like it’s pretty cool to know that you guys have a job-
N: -Even if it wasn’t originally what you wanted-
Al: Where you’re able to delve into your passions which is really cool.
There’s a lot of things we know about teaching, but what do you think is one of the best things about it?
A: You guys.
*Al and N awww*
A: I know, and it really is! We meet so many interesting people and I will never forget a quote that my uncle said to me, who was a lifelong educator, that “the kids will always keep you young,” and he is so right. Right? I don’t know, I really enjoy being around students your age.
G: For me, it’s always been work where I can make the most impact. It’s really important to me, a lot of my teaching practice involves sharing personal stories because I want you to learn from what I've done, good or bad, that can inform you on how to make better decisions than I did.
*Mr. Grickis walks into the room*
G: And the thing for me is- sorry, I'm massively distracted.
*Mr. Grickis comes to the front of the room to talk to Ms. Alm and Mr. Gibson*
Mr. Grickis: What do I do for anti-nausea if that happens?
A: Gravol.
Mr. Grickis: What if I don't have any Gravol?
A: Then buy some. There's this thing called stores.
Mr. Grickis: Tylenol?
A: Tylenol.
G: For, for- why would you be nauseous?
A: Because he’s getting his shot.
Mr. Grickis: I’m getting- [Mr. Hsia] got his shot and he was like all nauseous.
A: Yeah, then get Tylenol. I took Tylenol.
Mr. Grickis: So eat some charcoal, got it.
G: I don't know man, go to sleep? That’s what I did.
N: Drink water.
A: Yeah, good luck!
[Off-topic chit-chat about Mr. Grikis missing school tomorrow]
A: -you know what else is also really great about this job?
G: … I'll just get back to my answer later.
N: Is it summers off? Is it summers off?
A: It’s not summers off, it’s just the fact that it’s always changing and new? And, in a weird way.
G: There's a little bit of repetitiveness to this.
A: There’s a lot of greyhound- uh greyhound- groundhog-
G: Welcome to the end of the semester.
N: Ms. Alm, the last time we got a new thing it was the semester system. So I don’t think that’s like-
A: No-no,I'm talking about…. I… this is not an interview about the semester system.
G: *Cheers* WOOOOOO!
A: I’m talking about for me I enjoy finding new activities. Right? Like I’m doing something tomorrow that I’ve never done before.
G: You’re going to find out—you all being kids—are going to find out that 20 years from now, you're not going to remember university stuff. You’re going to have some university friends, you might remember a particular prof that had a significant impact on you, whatever the case may be. But this is the universal experience—everybody in Canada goes through high school. And everyone has that story of that one teacher that did that one thing that one time, maybe it’s throwing a calculator, maybe it’s doing a cool thing in class that made them laugh or whatever it is—and that’s the impact that I like. I like to know that I am the story 20, 30 years from now. So everyday, I show up to work all about what I can do to perhaps give that kid that one thing. And it’s really cool, and Ms. Alm has this in spades, it’s cool when you hear from a kid next year, or 5 years later, or 10 years later, and you find out that so-and-so is taking a path into something because of something that we did or didn’t do—a decision we made to help them out or whatever the case is. That kind of stuff pays itself. It is the best part of the job. So everything that has to do with you guys, that’s why we do what we do.
A: It’s so much less about the subject.
G: The content at the end of the day—I like the fact that I can infect people’s minds once in a while when they look at something. I’ll get a random message one time: “I’m driving in a car and I was thinking about this and it was your fault”—I kinda like that sort of thing! But if we make you think, we have done our job.
N: I mean, I did decide to go into a science degree because I took physics last year.
G: See? Another poor soul infected. I am so sorry.
You always mention that there are always interesting people. What are some of the memorable students you’ve had?
A: Just people who have loved learning for the sake of learning. I will never forget two girls in particular in field pig dissection. Many people will go through it and see everything. These two girls spent two days looking through every aspect of it that they possibly could. And they just wanted to learn—it wasn’t an assignment, it was just like “Can we look at this,” “Can we look at this”? One of the girls is now a surgeon and the other went into the TV industry. She thought she was going to become a doctor but she ended up becoming a producer. But those two, I will forever remember.
G: We remember the good and bad. But the important part is, when it comes to the good, the good is for all those reasons. It could be good to where perhaps one day there was a random interaction—maybe I'm going to Starbucks and they mention something and then we have a coffee the next time at school. It can range to personal stories—students feel comfortable enough to share some of their personal thoughts about things and you built that connection. There’s many students that I remember fondly because of learning about them and their family and their dreams and struggles. I help out with theater and I help out with volleyball and so I get different interactions with the kids. But you also remember the bad. You remember the kid that slams the door on you and says rough things to you, you remember the kids that challenge you. But at the end of the day, our goal is the same—it’s to leave them better than when they started with us. So we take the good with the bad. But we don’t mind the good! Being reminded once in a while that it matters is always good.
G: You didn’t even mention your Harvard letters! You know what, I’m gonna brag for her. Ms. Alm has impacted people in such a big way that they will actually speak to their schools on her behalf and tell them what an impact [she had], so much that they will send her letters and so the two that just come off the top of my head are Harvard and Stanford, where they have recognized Ms. Alm as an excellent teacher for impacting these people’s lives so much so that they feel compelled after the fact, and the girl from Harvard is after their undergrad, and then in grad school, that’s when she said that’s how important Ms. Alm is to me. So Ms. Alm is kind of a big deal. And you got that on recording… give it to her because I will never say it again. A: *Looks at letters on wall* I am gonna frame those.
G: Yeah, they’re kind of a big deal.
N: *Looks at shelf space on top of cabinets* You got a lot of space up there.
G: What, she got her bones and her scary things on there, ugh. Like what is that? Is that a bird? *Looks at skeleton*
A: It’s a Grade 8.
*Everyone laughs*
Objectively speaking, we can say that you guys are some of the most impactful teachers at Sentinel. We want to redirect the question right back to you and ask what was an impactful teacher in your high school experience?
A: I think for me it was Mr. Andrews. I can put myself right in his classroom. He made us sit in alphabetical order. Mr. Andrews had really strict guidelines but I feel like many students like to have “What is the line?”—that was Mr. Andrews but he also made everyone in there feel special in some way by picking on us, if that made sense. He picked on all of us, but in a really positive way that made you want to go to his class.
G: So when we pick on you, it is because we love you. That is apparently the story.
A: And then Mr. Andrews ended up working in a winery in Kelowna. So many years later, I would go visit there and he remembered me, and that was a big deal, because he had taught thousands of students.
G: For me, it was Mr. Chalmers, and he was my English teacher, which is funny coming from a Math and Physics guy. The thing about him was he had a standard, and that standard was held the same for everybody, and he would call me on my crap. It was checking my ego—you know, teenage boy, athlete, blah blah blah. Chalmers didn’t put up with it, and he kicked me out of his class in Grade 9. I remembered what he said after the fact: “You’re never big enough to not respect what I do.” I was fourteen years old and that stuck with me throughout. My European History teacher in Grade 12 was impactful only because we went on a trip together. We went to Italy on a school trip, and that was so cool because I saw a teacher in action and not in a classroom. The tour guides stopped talking because Mr. Eikenaar knew everything about what we were looking at. And the tour guides were like “I didn’t know that!” because they only had the book that they read. Those two teachers were impactful, but Mr. Chalmers has informed the way that I teach in a big way.
What was the most memorable university experience you had?
G: No comment. No comment. *Laughs*
A: There’s lots of “No comments” for me, but I will never forget being called out by a university professor for not paying attention. Oh! And… words to the wise—I also skipped the second half of every first-year physics class because it was so intensely boring.
G: If that doesn’t explain a lot, Ms. Alm–
A: –And I will never forget, I went for extra help, and the professor looked at me and said “Aren’t you the young lady that always leaves my lessons?” And I was like, “Ummmmmm, maybe?” and he refused to help me. That was a really important piece of learning for my university career, that lectures were important.
G: For me, one was being accused of cheating in undergrad. I skipped too many steps in calculus and my prof called me out on it and I fought, because I knew I wasn’t cheating. I fought it all the way up to a committee that included the Dean of Arts and Sciences and I won, because I just sat there and did calculus until they said it was enough. That informed me that when you know you were honest about what you do, don’t be afraid for what’s right. In that case, I was not going to take a 0 for something I knew damn well about. Another memory was when I was in grad school, going to Hawaii and using the telescopes. It was super and I used the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope on top of Mauna Kea, and I got to play scientist for five years, which is super cool. You don’t actually see anything because it is a radio telescope, but just the experience of staying at the base camp at 9,000 feet and going up to 14,000 feet and learning that altitude sickness is cool, and getting calls from people out throughout the world because you were observing their data at the time and was their quality check, that was really damn cool, so I definitely remember that one.
We have students coming in and leaving Sentinel. We want to know if you have any advice for Sentinel’s younger students that are coming in, as well as for graduating seniors who are leaving?
A: Advice for grads: I think you have to do what you want to do and follow what’s interesting to you. Don’t start thinking that you need to do what other people think you need to do, because you need to enjoy what you do in your life. You spend most of your time at work, and if you don’t like your work, that is going to be a big problem. And advice for Grade 8s? *Looks at animal skeleton on cabinets* G: See the bones on the shelf.
*Everyone laughs*
A: But seriously for Grade 8s, just take every opportunity to learn. Take as many different courses as possible. The biggest mistake you can do is just say “I am only going to take science.”
*Ms. Evans, art teacher, walk into the room*
A: Take art, take–
Ms. Evans: She’s saying that just because I’m here.
A: –No! I just really think that it’s important to take as many different courses as possible. I took English in university as my minor.
G: My advice for grads, it’s easy. It’s that practicality will come whether you like it or not, so what’s the point of starting it now? When Ms. Alm says to chase it, I mean chase it. If you want to do something and it sounds outlandish but nobody understands why you want it but you understand it, run with it. Because you’re young and you will always have a chance to change. No matter what, whatever your gut is telling you what you want to do, no matter anybody else trying to be—“What about jobs out of college?” and stuff like that—it will come. It will come no matter what. And my advice for Grade 8s? It’s the exact what Ms. Alm said but in a more poignant way. This is the only time in your life that this happens. You will never experience anything that feels like high school ever again. So as you go through school, what Ms. Alm said is absolutely true. You can do anything you want to do in terms of learning to where there are no consequences or repercussions. Go suck at P.E., go do well in Band, go take an art class just for the sake of curiosity, go build something in Woodwork. Do all of those things, because once you get out of here, it all starts to streamline, the music stops, and the opportunities all disappear, so take full advantage of it now, because life after high school is a completely different beast. It’s a wonderful beast, and I’ve enjoyed most of my moments of it, but take this for what it is, not simply a hoop that you jump through. Take your time, and enjoy your experience.
N: Thank you so much for taking the time to talk to us! And to everyone reading this, maybe consider checking out Mr. Gibson and Ms. Alm’s classes.
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