From Student to Teacher: Alex Levin ’03 Returns to GUS

From Student to Teacher: Alex Levin ’03 Returns to GUS

Alex Levin, GUS ’03, returned to campus this past fall as a new Grade 6 and 8 science teacher. He arrived full of fond memories of his time as a student and with fresh ideas in his new role as a GUS educator.

You majored in Environmental Studies at the University of Vermont. What encouraged you to pursue that line of study? What did you focus on within that field? A t UVM, my primary area of education was Environmental Studies with a focus on Green Building and Community Design. I chose UVM because I knew the school had a strong environmental program and I wanted to learn about green building strategies and energy efficient building design. For my senior thesis, I researched common restrictions to affordable green building, and the barriers to making aspects of green building available and affordable for lower-income housing. The energy in the environmental department was exciting and encouraging to me as a student.

What did you do after college and before returning to GUS?

After college, I moved to Salt Lake City, Utah. For four years, I split time working in SLC during the winter months and Rockport, MA during the summertime. I spent four summers directing the youth sailing program at Sandy Bay Yacht Club in Rockport, working with an awesome team of sailors and outdoor enthusiasts/educators. From 2015-2017, I also coached the sailing team at Middlebury College, where we competed in 25-30 races during the academic year, traveling to Florida, California, and all New England states to compete against some of the strongest college sailors in the country. After leaving Middlebury, I enrolled in a Master’s in Education program through Lesley University. The program included student teaching at Berwick Academy in Maine, where I gained valuable classroom teaching experience from devoted, skilled, and dedicated middle school teachers. After I completed my Master’s in Ed, I

remained at Berwick for another school year as a full time sabbatical sub, teaching fifth grade math and science, working with sixth graders in math, and also serving as a lacrosse coach and homeroom teacher.

What drew you back to GUS? What do you find is the same as when you were a student here? What has changed? What is it like to be back?

It is great to be back at GUS! A lot of familiar faces, and a lot of the same mantras and ideals stand tall today. I love the school’s commitment to place-based learning and outdoor education, as well as the thematic learning. The teachers are as incredible as I remember, allowing every student to find their niches and just ‘be themselves’.

As a science teacher at GUS, how is environmental studies part of the curriculum? What are your goals in terms of teaching the students about the environment?

The goal thus far has been to show students two sides of environmental studies: The world around us and all of its natural occurrences; and how our world is changing. I want to help students identify problems and then envision possible solutions to real world issues, especially those, such as climate change, that are discussed nearly every day. GUS students are encouraged to find their voices so the next step is to help guide them to realize that they do have the ability to make changes. You integrate the theme of social justice into your science and environmental teaching. Can you explain how you do that?

We use the ‘Design Thinking’ process for our science labs in sixth and eighth grades. This process involves five steps: Develop Empathy, Define (the problem), Ideate/Brainstorm, Prototype/Design, and Share/Test. It is a non-linear, cyclical process of coming up with solutions for real world problems for those in need. Thinking of others, especially those outside of our neighborhoods, helps develop empathy and helps us resonate with different populations of people, many of whom are also adolescents, before we can help out and design a solution.

Do you have a favorite project or unit of study with your students?

There are many! I am really excited about our eighth grade physics unit starting in January, as well as a student-designed unit on the impacts of climate change in the USA that we will start in March. I loved the sixth grade watershed unit, and look forward to the upcoming space exploration unit in February that will certainly provoke some of the students to think outside of the box. As always, I think it is important to incorporate hands-on “makers challenges” and tinkering with a variety of materials and technologies.