{"id":339,"date":"2021-11-05T13:29:00","date_gmt":"2021-11-05T13:29:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.acpsk12.org\/theogony\/2021-2022\/?p=339"},"modified":"2021-11-09T18:03:36","modified_gmt":"2021-11-09T18:03:36","slug":"new-teachers-for-the-2021-2022-school-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.acpsk12.org\/theogony\/2021-2022\/2021\/11\/05\/new-teachers-for-the-2021-2022-school-year\/","title":{"rendered":"New Faces on the Titan Block"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Audrey Jarrett<\/p>Staff Writer <\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

New teachers have been filing into the building for the new 2021-2022 school year. Nikkia Camm, Emily Cramer, and Daniel Duffy shared their stories working for Alexandria City Public Schools with us. With passion and keenness, the teachers told us their preferences, opinions, and funny stories from teaching here and at other schools in the past.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Camm and Duffy are both English teachers, however, they both have different stories on how they became English teachers, \u201c[I was] doing some freelance writing while getting my MFA in Creative Writing at Columbia. I taught some creative writing workshops, and I really, really liked it.\u201d said Duffy. Camm says that in ninth grade the moment her teacher introduced her class to Shakespeare, is when she realized she wanted to teach. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cramer, a German teacher from Somerset, Pennsylvania, says that \u201cI\u2019ve always loved the German language and culture\u201d and thinks that linguistics is a different major she would have if she did not become a teacher. Cramer immediately knew she wanted to be a teacher, \u201cVery early on, like 6 years old on [I knew I wanted to be a teacher]. Not always a German teacher but from a very, very early age.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \u201cI went to the University of Pittsburgh for my undergrad and graduate degree,\u201d said Cramer. \u201cThen I also did a summer in Augsburg, Germany, and went to their University.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cramer wants \u201ceverybody to enjoy German and feel comfortable in class and its atmosphere.\u201d For her, it has been a rough journey with people who could support her getting into German. \u201cEverybody told me that being a German teacher was a terrible idea, that I would never find a job but I just loved German so much that I made it work,\u201d proving the point that you can do anything you set your mind to. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Daniel Duffy was born and raised in Morrison, Illinois, one of the new English teachers, but \u201cI consider myself to be from Chicago because I lived there for 14 years.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While in the process of getting degrees, Duffy, \u201cgot my BA in English from Humboldt State University, my MFA in Creative Writing from Columbia College Chicago, and my MEd in Secondary Education from DePaul University.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When he was getting his MFA, Duffy was bartending for money and \u201ctaught some creative writing workshops, and I really, really liked it.\u201d Around the same time, his friend \u201chad quit his job as a financial advisor and become a teacher.\u201d With all this education, he told us a lot of wise words, \u201cDon’t fall into the trap of trying to be like other people that you admire. Go ahead, admire people and learn things from them, but then work on finding your own voice and your own identity.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Duffy expresses love for cooking by watching, physically making dishes, and sometimes wishing he went to culinary school. He watches the show called \u201cDavid Chang’s: The Next Thing You Eat<\/em>\u201d, and says that it is \u201ca really well-made and entertaining show about the future of food.\u201d Some of the things they talk about on the show are \u201cmeat consumption and how we need to get away from factory farming.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 Not only do Camm and Duffy both have English degrees, but they share a liking for cooking too. \u201cI often think about opening [a] business like a restaurant or something community based,\u201d said Camm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Duffy honors the \u201ccreativity, perseverance, and vulnerability\u201d students have. A hard-working drive is what Camm and Cramer both appreciate in students, while Cramer more specifically values \u201cwhen students pose really difficult questions like I value their critical thinking skills.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Duffy conveys the ups and downs in assisting his students, \u201chelping high school students navigate the tumultuous years when they are really trying to find their voices and figure out what their identity is, an exciting, wild time.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Duffy and Camm interviews by Sophia Jones<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

New teachers have been filing into the building for the new 2021-2022 school year. Nikkia Camm, Emily Cramer, and Daniel Duffy shared their stories working for Alexandria City Public Schools with us. With passion and keenness, the teachers told us their preferences, opinions, and funny stories from teaching here and at other schools in the past.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":513,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[31,32,92,72,73,87,71],"class_list":["post-339","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-achs","tag-alexandria-city-high-school","tag-audrey-jarrett","tag-english-teachers","tag-german-teacher","tag-new-teachers","tag-teachers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.acpsk12.org\/theogony\/2021-2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.acpsk12.org\/theogony\/2021-2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.acpsk12.org\/theogony\/2021-2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.acpsk12.org\/theogony\/2021-2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/30"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.acpsk12.org\/theogony\/2021-2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=339"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.acpsk12.org\/theogony\/2021-2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":571,"href":"https:\/\/www.acpsk12.org\/theogony\/2021-2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339\/revisions\/571"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.acpsk12.org\/theogony\/2021-2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/513"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.acpsk12.org\/theogony\/2021-2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.acpsk12.org\/theogony\/2021-2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.acpsk12.org\/theogony\/2021-2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}