Josh joins the St. Paul community to teach 6th and 7th grade mathematics. Born in the United States, he earned a Bachelor’s of Science degree in Kinesiology and his teaching credential from Sonoma State University. Josh also has a Master’s of Arts degree in Education, Curriculum and Instruction from Boise State University.
Josh has 15 years of teaching experience at the elementary level. Josh spent his last 6 years teaching 6th grade scholars in Idaho, United States. Josh works to create safe learning environments and believes that every student can make sense out of mathematics at a deep level. Over the last 18 years, he has been developing language-rich math classrooms where students make connections between a variety of representations. Recently, Josh was awarded the U.S. Presidential Award for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching at the elementary level, the highest honor given to teachers in the U.S..
Josh loves traveling the world with his wife, Casey. When Josh isn’t reading up on education, you can find him exercising, playing his bass, or watching the occasional sporting event.
Every single student that comes to me has an opportunity to work with every other student in class. They know each other’s names. They get a chance to hear each other think and they see themselves become more confident in mathematics because they no longer rely on somebody else to do the work. They see that the thinking that they’re doing is valuable and that people want to be able to hear it…
…At St. Paul students have a wide variety of opportunities to um develop their skills, their English language, and specifically they have opportunities to get challenged in their thinking. And as they get into their middle school years, they have so many opportunities to kind of explore themselves and to take chances and take risks. And we see them flourish in that opportunity.
We make sure that every kid feels recognized. is we make sure that every student feels an opportunity to be heard and listened to. As a parent, you you are your child’s first teacher. And for a parent to be able to express their concerns, their gratitudes, their successes that they’re watching with their students, like all of that is heard.
We also encourage parents just to make sure that supporting your middle schooler doesn’t necessarily mean like stepping in and doing everything for them, but it’s giving them a chance and the freedom to kind of struggle and wrestle through the middle school experience because we have small class sizes. We have opportunities to get to know and build relationships with all of our students. We can help support them in ways and we can work together as a staff with students to see them successful and grow. We recognize it’s through those supports that oftentimes our students thrive.
In terms of leadership, we have our student council. So, at the middle school level, students will meet two to three times a week with the intent on improving the quality of the experience for students here at St. Paul. They take the lead role from a student level on all the day-to-day issues that we have here at St. Paul. The academics is important, but for students to feel academically confident, they have to have a strong sense of social connection while they’re here. We also have an ambassador program that gives students who are new to St. Paul and new to the area an opportunity to kind of just get comfortable with the campus and a network base that allows them to feel more confident as they’re moving through.
Whether it’s through our co-curriculars in the arts and our sports programs or whether it’s through allowing for students to showcase the things that they’re learning inside and outside of St. Paul, they have those opportunities to kind of just thrive.